Unseen Colors
by Scruff the Rat
Summary: Santa, the Easter Bunny, the Sandman, the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost—these five are "the" Guardians, but are they the "only" Guardians? Rated for mild language and other such elements...
1. Damaged

**I own not Bunnymund, who is of Dreamworks, but rather Cupid. Now I can knock off this disclaimer most insipid.**

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A familiar 6 foot rabbit trotted through his home territory, the springtime this domain was well known for abound all around him. Bird-sung melodies enchanting and sweet, flowers blooming into various shades of primary and secondary colors, waters sparkling like diamond—yes, today seemed like a lovely day in Bunnymund's warren. Perfect, even...

So why, pray tell, was Bunnymund _not_ having a good day? Well, for starters, the answer wore a tiny green sweater, red corduroys, and black, red, and green colored Converses and had dark brown hair tied up in a ponytail, even though fashion sense was not the real issue here. Unfortunately, none of the living things Bunnymund had seen so far even _remotely_ matched that description.

"Where the bloody hell could that brat be?" Okay, granted, Bunny never said such harsh comments about children, especially not out loud, but this particular child he'd been tasked with training had been a real pain in the ass from the get-go and...Well, needless to say, the Guardian of Hope was just about on his last thread of patience thanks to that girl's rebellious attitude.

Even Jack was easier to handle than her—well, okay, maybe not a _lot_ easier, but still easier. At least Bunnymund could get the punk to back off (even if only temporarily) with a good stare-down. This girl, on the other hand, could probably have a stare-down with the Devil and still be unmovable. Sometimes, that kid just had too much obstinacy for her own good.

After a while of fruitless searching, the Pooka finally found his elusive quarry. From where he stood in the bushes, two dangling feet could be seen hanging from a nearby tree, the upper body of the limbs' owner obstructed from view thanks to the thick, green foliage. Without even the slightest hesitation, Bunnymund sauntered up to the tree's trunk and leaned against it nonchalantly, arms crossed, waiting for a snarky comment to be shot down at him.

None came.

'_Odd—the little brat's usually rarin' to take a shot at me.'_ Bunny gazed up at the branch that hung just above his head and that served as the seat of a tiny angel girl. Her legs were up to her chest and were wrapped up by her arms. She could have easily have seen him at this angle—so why the silence? What had happened to this girl's spitfire attitude? Now the Guardian of Hope was _really _worried. Aside from furrowed eyebrows, Bunnymund remained neutral in expression.

So many words could have passed between him and the lone brunette to assuage the ongoing tension.

"Anklebiters like you shouldn' be out here by their lonesome." Nice choice of words...

The angel girl scowled and tightened her grip on her legs, refusing to look Bunny's way. "I can handle myself, fuzzball," she lowly retorted with a squeaky voice full of defensive defiance. Before she could react, Bunnymund hopped onto the branch and sat down next to her, the branch creaking a bit at the added weight but otherwise still proving sturdy. The two beings remained in silence for a while, only the crickets and other creatures native to the land contributing their sounds to the conversation.

"_Great job so far, pipsqueak."_ That statement is what Cupid expected to hear; Bunny always said it whenever he heard her complaints. Ever since she'd been discovered to be a reincarnated Guardian, Cupid, an orphan who had long since forgotten her true name, had had to put up with the Pooka's unrelenting training exercise, his sarcastic means of talking to her, and his continued impassive coldness.

Cupid shook her head violently, trying her hardest to stem the tears threatening to escape her. Where had those rivulets of saltwater even come from? And why did they have to appear in front of _fuzzball_, of all magical beings? _'Why should __**he**__ care anyway? I'm just an extra problem to him, just like how I was to the grown-ups at the orphanage.' _Unlike her former name, the jeers and taunts from other children and insults from contemptuous adults, sadly, still remained fresh in her young, impressionable mind. _'I'm better off being by myself anyway. Can't anyone get something as simple as that right?'_

A sudden pressure on her head halted her thoughts, freezing her breath and bringing the focus of startled navy blue irises to the elder rabbit gazing down at her through bright emerald eyes. The frown on Bunnymund's muzzle held neither bite nor insult but rather something...warmer.

"I know how it feels to be damaged." Bunny leaned down so that he and his young ward could look each other in the eye. "But it ain't a question of whether you can stay whole; it's a question of whether ya willing to pick the pieces back up." With a tender smile on his white-furred muzzle, Bunny reached a hand to Cupid's cheek and, to the angel's total shock, wiped a tear that managed to escape her notice.

Words failed Cupid at this point for she remained speechless, shell-shocked by the compassion this Guardian had proven to her through both word and action. For that reason, she showed no resistance when the hulking warrior scooped her up in his lean but strong arms and cradled her gently and protectively against his soft, furry chest, her head coming to rest just below his chin. "Now listen, I don't know what sorta bull those people back at the orphanage told ya...and I couldn't care less 'bout it. And I want you ta do the same. Now look at me. Look at me."

The unsure angel, for once, did as she was told, still asking herself whether this whole reality was a psychotic dream. The smile her eyes showed her when she tilted her head upward was all the proof she needed.

But Bunny wasn't done yet. "Repeat what I'm gonna say. You ah kind. You ah smart. You ah important." **(1)**

"Y-you are kind. You...are smart. You are important." In all honesty, Cupid felt rather stupid doing this repetition, yet she went through it anyway for Bunny's sake of mind; he _had _been a good comfort to her so she figured she might as well return the favor.

"You are kind. You are smart. You are important," the two chanted together, eyes boring into those of the other like drills into the earth. "You are kind. You are smart. You are important."

'_Kind...smart...important...'_ More and more, Cupid felt a sort of deep-seated weight in her heart lift as she continued chanting this strange, little mantra. She felt...lighter now, almost like her wings could fly her forever and never tire. Weird as it sounded, that little chant had actually done the trick for her.

And she finally smiled—for only a second or two, much to the Pooka's notice and responding worry. Believe it or not, a question tumbled its way into Cupid's mind and she could no longer stave off the urge to hold it in. "Bunny...?"

"Yeah, kid...?"

The white-winged child fidgeted with the edge of her shirt before looking back up at Bunny in uneasy anticipation. "Do you really think I'm all that special?"

A confidently grinning Bunny scoffed lightheartedly as if that sentence had been the stupidest question he'd ever heard. "Guardian or no Guardian, would I have taken ya in if I had ever thought you weren't? Just looking a' you is all the proof I need ta believe that you're worth the trouble of training! Oh...and about the way I've been these last few weeks," his expression waned but did not vanish, "I'm not sorry for acting the way I did, but I _am_ sorry for what it made ya think."

Bunny held Cupid closer, nuzzling her forehead with his nose to elicit a small giggle from her—and succeed beautifully. "I _do _care about ya, kiddo. That's why I'm so tough on ya. Being a Guardian ain't uh cakewalk; all sorts of things can happen. I just wanna make certain you'll be ready to face 'em when the time's right."

The ends of Cupid's lips upturned, but one more inquiry lingered on her tongue and wished to be fulfilled before a smile could truly spring up. "Bunny...will I have to go back to practice soon? I feel like doing something else now."

To Cupid's sudden nervousness, a frown became dominant on the older Guardian's face. For the space of that moment, she feared that he'd indeed say "no."

Instead and to her immense relief, the frown proved to be a result of Bunny thinking for before long, with a buck-toothed smile back on his face, he suddenly inquired, both eyebrows raised, "Wanna visit Tooth?"

The springtime warrior's smile grew even wider along with that of his darling, disbelieving sprite. "R-R-Really...?"

Bunnymund nodded. "Course...! Haven't been to see her in a while meself, in fact. I think we could both use a change of scenery anyway."

A fierce hug instantly enveloped the rabbit's thick neck as his angel buried her face into his cloud-soft fur, her head sinking an indentation into the pelt like a sleepy noggin into a pillow. The paternal lapine gladly returned the heart-warming gesture, his grip on her tight but snug.

'_You'll neva' be alone, my little doe. I promise.'_

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**(1) From "The Help"—I heavily recommend it!**


	2. To The End

**This part will be a bit spoiler-ridden, so don't read unless you've seen the movie. **

**Oh, and the OCs in this chapter and any related non-canon elements are mine. Anything that **_**is **_**canon, including the original Guardians, is property of Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce.**

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'_And here I thought they couldn't get more pathetic.'_

And by pathetic, did he mean pathetic! Pitch could almost laugh his soul away at the pitiful sight before him. In fact, he so very much wished right now to simply throw his head back and gloat over and over again how he managed to reduce the mighty "Guardians of Childhood" into nothing more than a group of washed up has-beens.

But first, there still remained the issue of one pesky little believer.

Business before pleasure, after all...

Right before the Nightmare King was the sight of all seven Guardians—yes, that's right, _seven_ guardians—and their pitiful attempts to protect the young boy standing behind Jack Frost, the three newest faces (or better yet, not-so-new yet still unexpected) at the forefront of the group.

The Nightmare King honestly thought he had rid himself of Cupid, Roy, and Hally two centuries ago, but especially Hally. How they had all managed to escape the Lost Lands and its queen, he had virtually no idea. Escape should have been impossible. They shouldn't have even _survived_ long enough to have been able to escape in the first place. Sometimes these Guardians never ceased to stupefy him.

But then the urge to laugh returned. _'And yet sometimes they never cease to amuse me either.'_

Those three fools had come all this way to help their friends...only to realize too late that due to their long-seated absence, the children of the world had lost faith in the virtues each of the estranged guardians stood for...

Hally's virtue of bravery...

Roy's virtue of imagination...

Cupid's virtue of heart...

They were all gone, just like the wonder, hope, memories, and dreams before them. And here their defenders now stand— both their powers and statures reduced to forms that a stranger would not have believed were those of who were once warriors of insurmountable skill and magic.

Roy G. Biv, once the feared Guardian of Light, now, like North, had barely the strength to keep himself up, his dagger serving as nothing more than a makeshift cane. The faint, purple bags under his increasingly neutral green eyes only emphasized the overall lack of color of both his clothes and skin. His curly wild hair, once a fierce shade of fire-red, now dull brown, hung limply as shades of greyish-white shot through it here and there.

Cupid, the Guardian of Heart, once the size and height of Jack, hardly stood any taller than the shrunk Bunnymund. She had long ago lost her wings and bow and arrows and now, thanks to her pudgy, toddler form, had about as much quickness as a puppy with its paws tied together. Forget fighting Pitch—she'd be fortunate enough just to win the battle to stand without the aid of her miniaturized stepfather.

And finally, in between Cupid and Roy, just in front of North, stood the spirit of Halloween, the orb of her tiny wand a dim grey instead of its usual sparkling violet. With the loss of children's belief in the other Guardians, Hally had found her own powers fading as well. As a result, she reverted only minutes ago into the accursed doll form she had formerly been forced to live with for 3 millennia prior to her rescue by Katherine. In natural but unwilling accordance with all Guardian logic, she had lost both her ability to talk and her arcane powers. Already her staff lost opacity repeatedly, fading in and out, more and more to the point of nonexistence each time. However, being a Guardian whose holiday depended partly on fear, the weakened sorceress, to her brief relief, could still walk thanks to the abundance of scare in the world.

But Halloween shared one important similarity with Christmas, Easter, and all the other holidays: it thrived on positive emotions. Even if fear is normally connotated as negative, the children who celebrate the day of haunts and other such dark-themed celebrations of fun (or _used_ to celebrate them, in more precise terms) actually _wanted _to be scared. They _wanted_ to be frightened out of their wits.

The children had a _choice._

Not like here...not like how _Pitch_ did fear...No positivity lay anywhere left in the world...save for that one little boy under Jack Frost's care. For that reason, the painted expression on the witch-doll's smoothly carved face grimaced even more darkly than the visages of her fellow Guardians, if such an action were even possible.

"Oh my dear sister," Pitch placed his hands over his heart (or at least where his heart should be) and clicked his tongue in disappointment, his gaunt face reflecting likewise, but delighted deep down at the respondent looks of outrage on North and Hally's faces. He knew and remembered very well how much offense the two spirits took to the Nightmare King comparing himself to the spirit of Halloween herself. Though not related by blood or marriage, Hally and Pitch were both involved with fear in one way or another...and that similarity, ever since the two beings' first encounter with each other, became more than enough of a reason for the latter to taunt and dispirit the benign mage. "It's no wonder North fell in love with you. You're just as foolishly idealistic as he and the rest of these pitiful Guardians are."

Then to the sorceress's inexpressible disgust (and by "inexpressible," we mean "unable to be voiced"), a sly grin crawled across the dark being's face—apparently his attempt at looking merciful and sympathetic. "_But_ there is still a chance for you, Hally. In fact, if you join me, I can make certain you get _all_ your powers back! You can be rid of that horrid form for _all _eternity! Best of all, Halloween will remain intact and all your dear monsters unharmed!" And with his false words of comfort spoken, Pitch extended a hand to the wooden doll...

...only to watch as she tugged gently yet intently on North's pants, the Christmas Guardian, in spite of his weakness, at least able to pick her up and deposit her on his right shoulder so the two elders could be at eye level with each other. Oh, if looks could kill, Hally's would have burnt Pitch to a charring crisp in nanoseconds! That fact did not lose itself upon Nicholas St. North's notice; in fact, the stocky present-bringer smirked at his significant other's potent silence. He returned the icy attention of his glacier-blue eyes to Pitch.

"You are very lucky she no longer have voice. Otherwise, she'd have _very_ sharp words to say to you."

Was Pitch intimidated? No. Was he amused? Not anymore. Was he bored of these people? Heck yes. The prince of horror merely rolled his eyes and emitted a light sigh. "Very well, since you _all_ wish to perish together then be it far from me to—"

**THAWCK!**

One snowball from out of nowhere struck Pitch right in the face, muffling his speech through slushy mush and earning a few inevitable chuckles from Jamie, as well as a few surprised snorts from a few of the Guardians. The distempered Nightmare King didn't need a hint to know who had thrown that accursed sphere of cold...just as that action would be the only signal the other Guardians needed to know that this fight wasn't over.

Not just yet.

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**I loved that part of the movie! X)**


	3. Cookie Jar

**Hally belongs to me. Jack Frost and Nicholas St. North belong to Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce.**

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"I thought I heard sometheeng. And _look_ vhat I find."

Only one word made its way into Jack Frost's mind as he and the elder spirit of Halloween stood stone-still in the massive kitchen, the immense shadow of a certain, white-bearded Guardian looming upon them: _'Busted!'_

Indeed, with his fists akimbo, face expressionless, and eyes narrowed, Nicholas St. North appeared to be on the very edge of severe reprimanding. Before him stood the imposters— Jack Frost—icy-blue eyed, lean figure in the typical blue hoodie and frayed brown pants and with short, snow-white hair —and Hally O. Ween—slightly taller than Jack but lean as well, only with longer, flowing, blonde hair and sunset-orange eyes. With plenty of physical similarities and the like expressions of childish apprehension on their faces, the two Guardians could almost appear as relatives of each other.

"I suppose two of you vould like to explain vhat you are doeeing in kitchen." Those thick, grayish-ebony eyebrows of North gained altitude on the jolly red giant's forehead, suggesting that perhaps there were an ulterior motive as to why he hadn't reproached the two mischief-makers by now. Was the old man just messing with them? Trying to see them sweat a little...?

In all honesty, Jack Frost had no idea whatsoever.

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_In fact, he had originally intended for his break-in to be a solo act. _

_Imagine the winter spirit's shock when he turned a corner and bumped into none other than the Guardian of Halloween, sneaking through the chilly halls of North's palace in naught but a silky, white night gown that reached her pale ankles and orange, jack-o-lantern slippers. Frost had heard of her throughout the course of his 300 years as the winter sprite, but he'd never actually seen her in person, let alone heard her actual description (people always loved over-exaggerating for some reason). _

_So at first, Jack couldn't quite make heads or tails of this absolute stranger. Who was this strange, elderly woman? He instantly shot down the possibility of her being Mrs. Claus on account of the bat-winged staff she held defensively in her hands, although Jack had a feeling she only wished to use it to spook him. Actually, at the thought of a certain "s" word, he took a quick peek down at the woman's oddly decorated slippers and thought with a smirk, __**'Huh, looks I made a good call with the 'spook' thing...'**_

_Well, he had dealt with plenty of Halloween spirits before so at least, as far as he figured, there'd hardly be any surprises. But then confusion and curiosity gave way to panic within Jack at a foregone conclusion: he'd just been caught._

_Granted, an altercation with the yetis or elves was never pleasant either, especially with the yetis, but Jack actually feared this stranger's possible response to his intruding even more. After all, with a staff like hers and the fact that her presence, unlike that of the winter spirit, was evidently welcomed (North wouldn't let just any lady in, after all), she could very well prove herself to be just as dangerous as North...maybe even worse, if such a case were possible._

_But before Jack could turn to dash away as quickly as his powers would allow, the spook-themed witch disarmed the younger spirit and his fight-or-flight instincts with a giant, gleaming-white smile that would have put even the best of salespeople to shame._

_"__**Guten Abend!**__ I am so sorry! I didn't see you there! I was just on my way to the kitchen so I could shut my tummy up!" At this point, the elder woman slapped a hand to her forehead in exasperation. "Ugh, but I tell you. This place is a giant maze! Oh, I don't see how North stands living like this! The least he could do is have maps showing where is where. That's what the ghosts and I do at my castle!"_

_For reasons beyond the winter sprite's understanding, the idea of high-tailing out of Santa's workshop sounded like nonsense now or a bad idea at least. Maybe the reason was the sense of ease this weird lady managed to instill in Jack. If the snow spirit didn't know better, he would have accused this woman of witchcraft. Hey, she could have placed a spell for mind-control or emotion manipulation on him for all the teen knew. If Jack understood anything about magic, it was that the arcane arts could be very, very versatile and sneaky. Even if magic was the culprit, though, Jack still wouldn't have brought himself to just ditch this woman. She had already piqued his interest much too much at this point._

_The ice sprite tilted his head in curiosity. "Wait a sec'...what do you mean by 'your castle'?"_

_The rest is history._

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And so here the two spirits were, caught red-handed, both unwarranted in some fashion, and one looming Santa Claus expectant for an answer. Thus, hands caught in the cookie jar, Hally O. Ween resorted to the only tactic appropriate for this situation. Clamping a hand over Jack's face to keep the kid from blurting out something that would just dig them deeper into their current rut, she plastered a giant grin on her creamy face as she seductively brushed a strand of blonde hair away from her sunrise-auburn eyes.

"Oh, Nicky! Hello dear! I was just teaching Jack—"

"How to sneak into cookie jar again..." Point-blank tone and right onto the scheme of the two mischief-makers...Shoot...

_'Sometimes having the one and only Santa Claus as your __**engel**__ is so annoying!'_ Nothing popped out of Hally's mouth after North's casually said accusation. "...Showing him how to _bake_ cookies..."

A grizzled eyebrow shot up the Russian man's massive forehead. "At night...?"

Hally dismissed the detail by waving her hand. "It was a spur-of-the-moment lesson," she explained in a deadpan voice. "You know how youth are. I told Jack _months_ ago he should prepare, but...he didn't listen. And now with Christmas only a week or two away, I decided to be merciful and spare him the lecture. Besides, at least he's not messing with your toys again like last time." Jack, mouth still clamped shut thanks to Hally's hand, shook off the offending fingers and palm then nodded in earnest. As a mischief-maker, the winter sprite knew better than to not play along.

North remained unconvinced. "Then how come Jack has cookie in hand? I doubt your lesson would have gone _dat_ quickly."

This time, the subject of the giant's suspicion-laden statement piped up, holding the incriminating piece of sweet up in the air and waving it, "So I have something as an illustration! How am I supposed to know how well I've learned if I don't have a clear idea of what a good cookie looks like?"

Hally, to the best of her ability, wrapped an arm around the man's mammoth waist and nuzzled her cheek into Nicholas's side as she nodded to the younger Guardian's two cents. "Exactly! See, Nicky? He's already learning!"

North still wasn't buying the excuses, though. The soft, brown crumbs that Jack and Hally had noticed their faces just now and failed to wipe off completely proved prominent on their arms, as well on the floor and the counter.

In layman's terms...the gig was up.

Sighing heavily in German words of resignation, Hally threw her hands in the air. "Alright...alright. You've got us. Happy now?"

"Not quite...," a knowingly smiling North quipped jokingly. He sidled past the two spirits and pulled out two cookies from the massive jar with his thick fingers. "If you two wanted cookies so bad, why not just ask?"

Nobody answered that question...not that North expected the love of his life or the wayward ice spirit to respond at all. His Flare Fairy let her eyes wander to the ceiling before landing unsurely back on him while she attempted to conjure up a decent-sounding justification. "Be-cause that wouldn't be fun...?"

North stared at the blonde for a few seconds, his crystal-blue eyes wide, and then shot a glance in Jack's direction; the winter sprite merely shrugged. The lady had practically taken the words right out of his mouth, believe it or not. The white-bearded sword-bearer switched looks between Jack and Hally a while longer. Eventually, after a seeming eternity, he clucked his teeth and exhaled through his nose in amused disbelief. "The two of you..."

Then like a bouncing ball, laughter burst past North's lips as the jolly giant suddenly pounced upon the smaller, startled Guardians and scooped them both into a bear hug of bone-crushing proportions! Even for a veteran Guardian like Hally, the embraces of the famous Santa Claus were nothing to shrug off...mainly because shrugging off was no easy task to accomplish after nearly getting the air squeezed out of one's lungs.

And a blue-faced Jack Frost was getting first-hand experience on that tidbit of reality. _'On second thought, getting chewed out is starting to sound better and better!'_

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**Oh the fluff...! I couldn't resist! I'm sorry if this chapter appears to be too short. Feel free to give me suggestions on how I can improve on North's accent. **

**Change (4/12/2013): I know this chapter originally had Hally's accent, but I dropped the speech pattern because it simply didn't feel authentic in the way I did it. **


	4. Closed Up

**Roy and all other characters, as well as elements, not canon to the RotG Universe belong to me. Bunny, Jack, and anything and anyone else canon belong to Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce.**

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"Roy...?" the smooth voice of an adolescent called out from behind the wooden door of a medium-sized cottage. A series of firm thumps against the only barrier to the interior sounded off, echoing resoundingly off the aged brick walls.

"Roy? Ya in there, mate?" joined in another voice, this one deeper, gritty, and tinged with a noticeable Australian accent. A familiar winter spirit—the source of the first voice— with some difficulty, managed to open the heavy wooden door...maybe with some assistance from his colleague. A pale head topped by closely-cut, snow-white hair peeked past the jamb, crystal blue eyes visually absorbing the room's appearance...much to a certain other Guardian's impatience. A second series of thumps—this time, by a giant "foot" tap-tapping against the worn-out dirt pathway in which half of the ice spirit's body still stood—streamed from outside, as well.

"Oi, Frosty, ya gonna spend all night like tha'?"

"Chill, Peter Cottontail," the ever-laidback Jack Frost returned briskly, his usual attitude obvious behind the words. He opened the door wider and stepped inside, the unkempt state of the place impressive enough to make him whistle—which he did. "Sure could use a good sweep," he muttered, "Tooth would've flipped."

A larger, furry figure stomped inside right after Jack, the blue-furred, tribal-tatooed form of none other than E. Aster Bunnymund filling in the doorway as the Guardian of Hope crossed his sinewy arms across his broad chest and shot an irritated yet secretly amused glare down at his younger companion. "Jus' focus on findin' Roy, Frostbite."

With one hand and two of its fingers to his forehead, Jack saluted to the Easter Bunny in mock respect, smirk and all. "Aye aye, _captain_," he snarkily replied before heading off in a random direction, hardly convinced in his and the Pooka's ability to find the ever-elusive Guardian of Light—the man _was_ supposed to be a leprechaun, after all.

Bunnymund merely rolled his verdant eyes before turning his head in the direction of the dark-crimson chimney for no specific reason at all, randomly choosing a spot in which to search. The lapine's bright-emerald eyes narrowed in concentration the moment he noticed the extremely faint—nearly nonexistent—embers that glowed weakly from beneath the overhead layer of soot.

'_Those look way too recent fo' this place ta be empty.'_ Bunny raised a thick, black eyebrow before warily making his way to the chimney and the giant, worn-out, red-leather chair that lay some distance from it. The piece of furniture, much to the rabbit's amusement, actually reached to be of the same height as a full grown man (or at least the same height as the shoulder of an average-sized, full grown male Pooka) from top to bottom. Bunny couldn't help but wonder why a man of Roy's stature would ever possess furniture that, for all intents and purposes, merely emphasized the height of an adult shorter than the average person.

_'Bloke neva' did have the keenest fashion sense.'_ Not that Bunny was a connoisseur in style himself...

On the other hand...the anthropomorphic rabbit had known the penny-pincher long enough to understand, remember, and even, more often than not, predict his habits. The Pooka almost pitied the man on account of how obvious the Irish fellow's tricks were outside of battle, even without a single olfactive trace of magic for even Bunny's sensitive nose to detect.

The Guardian of Hope casually strolled on up to the right side of the seemingly empty chair (his left side), crossed his arms, and stated point-blank, unimpressed, to 'no one in particular,' "You gotta come up wit' bettah ideas on 'ow ta avoid us, mate."

A coarsely baritone groan sank into the tiny house's atmosphere as an exhausted-looking, bantam, elderly gentleman with surprisingly fire-red, curly, balding hair, and a navel-length beard wisped into existence, traces of different-colored light slipping off him immediately after his reappearance. The gold chain hanging from underneath his white flannel shirt jingled and shone in spite of the dimness as he continued to stare into a phantom fire he couldn't will to reignite to life.

"Roy...?" Bunny narrowed his eyes again...but this time in concern. Had he underestimated the emotional impact of his and Jack's unveiling of and elaboration on the underhanded transgressions of heart committed by Roy's so-called sweetheart?

'_This bloke's gotta snap outta it!'_ Bunny had had just about enough of seeing someone of the auburn knife-wielder's age dwelling in such misery. "Roy...Roy!" The tempered rabbit snapped his fingers in front of the listless leprechaun's ruddy face. "Lis'en, you bastard, I didn' come all this way—wit' Frostbite of all folks—just ta watch ya lay aroun' an' mope."

If the lapine expected his little "pep talk" to actually motivate Roy to remove his caboose from that chair then he was sadly mistaken. _'Well that's just peachy...cuz I ain't trying to. What I **am** trying is snapping this gumby outta his depression. One day, I get. Two days, I can let slide. A week, that's just pushin' it...but three damn months...?'_

That was where the Easter Bunny drew the line. No, scratch that; that was _far_ beyond where he would have drawn the line. Break-ups were no picnic, true, but they were no excuse to cut oneself off from life...or from one's friends. Bunny cringed inside at the idea of calling Roy "friend." This wasn't to say he disliked the Guardian of Light in any form or on any degree. He simply...

E. Aster Bunnymund lost his waning glare then sighed...deeply and slowly...because of guilt.

After the incident with Pitch last year, an event that not only woke up the Big Four's eyes to how isolated Jack had been for 300 plus years...but as well as to the fact that they never did anything to fix that problem...the possibility of other spirits, both Guardian and non-Guardian, being just as alone as Jack once was...or at least having problems too significant to be tackled alone no longer appeared irrelevant or unimportant.

Such a reality proved even more real after realizing the woes weighing down on the other Guardians...Hally's fear of never being worthy of comparison to the others because of her supposed inability to create "beautiful things"...Cupid's long-sustained fear of being abandoned again...Robin Goodfellow and his fear of losing everyone in a single swoop because of his mistakes...

...And now Roy...

As North put it last night, "Ve are powerful, yes, but dat doesn't make us inveencible. Dis is true for even we Guardians."

Needless to say, the old codger was dead-on right. Even the Big Four (now Big Five) were not free of weakness.

The Guardians couldn't have taken on Pitch without Jack and vice versa. Jack wouldn't have been able to rediscover and remember his past without the other Guardians' aid. Roy, Hally, and Cupid wouldn't have been able to defeat and cure the Forgotten Queen without each other, much less return home in one piece. Without those three, even Warp, considered to be among the most powerful of Guardians, would have been virtually powerless to undo the paradox caused by the Queen, Pitch, and Jezebel.

Bunny ran a roughened hand up his forehead, the weight of the whole situation finally dawning on him. Remnants of his war-hardened façade finally crumbled away as the humanoid lapine leaned his side up against the chair's side. After an hour-long second of silence, a weary frown donned on the rabbit's muzzle...a mellowed counterpart to Roy's own despondent sulk.

Neither of the Guardians noticed Jack gently and quietly touch-down right beside the chair, on the opposite side of Bunny. In a rare moment of trepidation, Jack tightened his grip on his staff with both hands before asking the question that lay on both his and the Pooka's minds...already quite certain of the upcoming answer. "That wasn't her brother, was it?"

"Don' even know if the lass evah 'ad uh brother, lad...," the Irish Guardian murmured in a faintly cracking voice, his characteristic smugness as dead as desolate earth. He tore his emerald eyes away from the chimney and bored them into Jack...or at least tried to get them to do that. The ice spirit never flinched in the slightest as the shorter yet older man hollowly mourned in a strained voice, "'Twas cruel o' you ta tell me."

Those words struck chords in both Jack's heart and Bunny's; they anticipated the heartbroken man to say such words...they simply had no idea of the emotional impact said words would invoke upon them.

Bunny, usually the most stoic and unemotional of the Guardians, dropped his massive shoulders with a sigh, revealing a rare amount of sympathy for his colleague. Granted, he could barely remember the last time he himself had been in such an emotionally paining and belittling situation, which had been centuries ago—prior to his induction as a Guardian, in fact—but the feelings of pride-stripped rage mixed in with initial disbelief and then cascading melancholy still proved fresh like garden soil in the Pooka's mind.

Meanwhile, Jack Frost gazed upon the redhead sitting in between him and Bunny with a twinge of nervous uncertainty, not quite as familiar with the ways of the heart as his seniors were. However, he could relate with Roy on some level. Prior to becoming a spirit, Jack had a few friends who reluctantly shared with him tales of a pretty or talented girl falling out of favor with them and ultimately abandoning them. Now, Jack, much like Roy and Bunny (like most other guys, actually) wasn't normally the type of person to wear his emotions on his sleeve unless they were smug satisfaction or genuine happiness. Even so, though, he knew that the moment he'd secretly caught April Showers, Roy's now ex-girlfriend, making out with another spirit that something had to be done...fast!

Folks could call Jack Frost out on having numerous faults...but being heartless wasn't one of them. Just because his powers encompassed winter didn't mean he had to be just as cold as his abilities were. In fact, Roy was, by far, one of Jack's favorite Guardians...aside, of course, from North, Hally, Tooth, Sandy, Anansi, Bunny, Cupid...well okay, so maybe he liked all the Guardians too equally to have a clear favorite, but he still had a place in his heart for the sarcastic rainbow jumper.

The man was hilarious, fun, witty, daring, and, despite his current bad luck, knew how to woo members of the opposite sex. All in all, the man was by far one of the greatest, if not _the_ greatest, of uncles the Guardian of Fun could have asked for.

So how someone could dare to toy with this man's heart then simply discard it and stomp it into splinters as if it were nothing to fret over or even consider-Jack found the idea too disgusting and disheartening to contemplate any further. Besides, he and the others would have plenty of time to exact revenge on the leprechaun's behalf for the cruelty that ungrateful hag had committed. Right now, Roy needed the comfort of his friends...well, as close as to comfort as one can get with friends as hardcore as Bunny and as mischievous as the ice sprite.

Jack, case in point, rubbed the back of his neck, initially unsure of what he could say to brighten up and lift up Roy's trodden emotions. Then he remembered the words he always managed to say to his friends from long ago. _'Not sure they'll work with a Guardian thousands of years old...but here goes something, I guess.' _"Listen Roy...you're probably better without her. I mean...what woman is worth dealing with if she's only going to go behind your back and cheat on you...you know?"

Man, Jack felt weird after saying that—kind of good but still weird. The winter spirit's sense of awkwardness only multiplied upon seeing the looks of awestruck and stupor on not only Roy's face but Bunny's, too, the boy mistaking the countenances for something negative.

Short term: Jack just backed himself into a corner (or so he thought). "Uh..."

Thankfully, Bunny stopped him (and thus saved him a world of self-induced embarrassment in the process) by pointing a finger at him and begrudgingly piping up, "Didn' think I'd be sayin' this, but...kid's hit the nail on the head 'ere." The Pooka ignored the growing smugness replacing the initial disbelief in Jack's eyes and redirected his eyes back on Roy. "Look, there ah plenty of otha' fish in the sea. 'Sides, it coulda' been worse," the Easter Rabbit continued on, a prominent grin gracing his face and a somewhat forced chuckle accompanying it, "You coulda' found out afta' the two of ya married."

The little joke didn't create the effect Bunny hoped for: Roy slumped even more in his chair, almost to the point that his eyes were downcast enough to face the floor. This time, the lapine rubbed the back of _his_ own neck the second his eyes caught the pained look still persisting in those emerald irises. '_Crikey, this is ha'der than I thought.'_

Then to the Pooka's notice and soon confusion, Jack suddenly perked up and smiled—a sure-fire sign of a plan cooking up in his head. Bunny couldn't decide between being curious and interested...or jumping down one of his tunnels with Roy in tow-just in case of something exploding.

"Hey Roy...? North's hosting Hally's birthday today. Wanna come with?"

Roy G. Biv's body shot straight like one of the strings of Cupid's bow, his wide-eyed stare at Jack chock full of dumbstruck shock. He gestured a shaggy hand to himself. "Me...?" Were they...actually inviting him? Even after the way he treated them these past few months..._'Tha' canna be possible.'_

A certain gruff voice to his right suddenly barked out, the smile more than evident in the tone, catching Roy's attention and thus bringing the man's focus to Bunny, "No, ya Gumby, the otha' smartass moping midget in fronta' us—course Frostbite means you! Now wipe up 'em tears, grab yer jacket, and come ou' wit' us. We're headin' out ta North Pole...an' befo' ya ask, mate: North'll be pickin' us up!"

Bunny shivered immediately, not looking forward to hitching a ride on the sleigh (he'd rather prefer the tunnels, thank you very much), but at least got a tiny laugh from Roy, a ghost of his wizened smirk on his hairy face, for all his troubles. Jack, too, chuckled—well, okay, more like _snorted_ at the rabbit's slight antic, but stifled it in vain upon catching the unamused, wilting glare from the taller rabbit. The Guardian of Fun still smirked, regardless. There was no fooling him; he knew Bunny intended for Roy to smile. The burly bunny was a big softie deep down, after all— even if he'd gut almost anyone foolish enough to say that out loud.

Eyes expanded, Roy suddenly began to protest, waving his hands to cease his teammates' efforts. "Boys, you don' haffa—"

"Hold that thought, mate," Bunny interrupted in a distracted voice. The Guardian of Light wrinkled his forehead in annoyance, his old temper returning due to the flippant manner in which the younger Guardian had just disregarded his words, and shot a glare up Bunny's way...The glower dropped in an instant at the sight of the Pooka talking into a grey-and-white streamed snow-globe device sitting in the palm of his hand. Roy could faintly hear a familiar Russian accent emanating from the sparkling orb.

"Oi, North! Yeah, we found the bloke. Thought he could slip past us, he did." Bunny passed a joking smirk down Roy's direction before continuing. "Say, you don' mind droppin' down inta Ireland ta pick us up, do ya? You can? Alright, ripper! Later, mate."

While stuffing the snowball back into a pouch of his leather sash, Bunny tossed a sly grin at his Irish companion. "Welp, Roy, looks like you ain't got much of a choice, now, do ya?"

The addressed, for once in his long life, remained in stark silence, utterly and completely at a loss in what to exactly say in response to this kindness and support being handed to him. Turning to Jack Frost, of all people, for help made no difference. The smiling spirit of cold simply shrugged his shoulders. "Hey don't look at me. I just tagged along for the ride."

There was no hiding the tone of frank care in Jack's voice, though, just as there was no denying the same quality in Bunny's heartfelt expression. Roy couldn't bring himself to thank these two, the most unexpected of friends, for helping him in this time of distress...so he didn't.

He felt one-hundred percent certain they already knew, all the same.

His rosy cheeks stretching from their first honest smile in months, the miniature man threw his arms into the air in playful surrender. "Arigh' lads, ya win. Jus' lemme fetch me jacket first."

* * *

**I've just realized I'm disappointed they never got Bunny to say "ripper" in the movie. I just love that word! ^_^ By the way, did I do well on Roy's accent; was it too Scottish? Come on, don't be shy!**

**This chapter is kind of based off of an episode of "True Jackson" called "Telling Amanda." Actually, it's based more off of the next-to-final scene in that episode, to be more precise. Something about the way True confronted Amanda after telling her the harsh truth about the woman's two-timing boyfriend stuck to me for all these years.**


	5. Pick Me Up

**Bunnymund belongs to William Joyce and Dreamworks Animation. Cupid belongs to me.**

* * *

"Again."

An arrow narrowly misses the target. Bunnymund frowns, arms crossed. He isn't pleased.

"Again."

An arrow narrowly misses a tree. Bunnymund grumbles, hands tightening. He isn't impressed.

"Again."

An arrow narrowly misses a scampering egglette, causing the unfortunate mini-egg to topple sideways into the relatively towering grass, its spindly legs kicking in vain to stand up again. Bunnymund doesn't even bother keeping his thoughts in this time. He grits his buck teeth, rolls his eyes, and sighs in audible exasperation. He'd been trying to see past the constant foul-ups, but enough was enough!

The enraged lapine stomped his way to a dark-countenance faced girl archer, ignoring the dangerously slow manner in which she lowered her bow and the way her eyes deliberately remained on the direction of the last arrow. "Fo' God's sake, squirt, watch y'ur damn aim! I don' grow those on trees, ya know!"

"**Fuck off, fuzzbucket!"** Hard into the ground went the bow and quiver as their owner shot up at a certain Pooka an ascending glare worthy of her scathing words. All egglettes in the surrounding, including the one still on the ground, suddenly were as stone-silent as the golems; their silence hung heavy in the warm, humid air as a certain angel proceeded with her sizzling rebuttal. "I don't see _you_ behind a bow and arrow!"

The swearing and the name brought a carrot-ridden stench, a scorning glower, and two baleful jade eyes into the impudent child's senses right after the second sentence. Bunny shook his head almost imperceptibly, verdant eyes narrowed dangerously, almost as if the Pooka could not decide between disbelieving the words just shot at him and challenging the audacious girl scowling up at him in defiance. "You're gonna be seein' stars around ye head soon enough wit' words like that. Don' wan' me to clock ya?" He jabbed a finger at the discarded equipment. "Then pick up tha' bow an' arrow an' try again."

Nothing happened for three so Bunny simply stuck his finger at the bow and quiver with more added force.

Then surely...slowly and reluctantly but surely, Cupid obeyed...except she never kept her fiery glare off of the towering lapine. With a final, arrogant huff, Cupid went through the proper motions (just as practiced), breathing to calm her nerves (repetitively), and released an arrow for about the one-hundredth time today. For years to come, the future Guardian would look back at this moment in time and wonder, _'What'd I been thinking then?'_

Said thought didn't indicate apprehension but rather curiosity...like how an adult might uncover a childhood memory from long ago and puzzle and puzzle over why the recollection does not fully coincide with that of what he or she _believes _to remember. Same case as with the Cupid-to-be...

She could have sworn she remembered catching a glimpse of Bunny, same neutral expression, set and ready to morph into another scowl as the rabbit himself drills criticisms into his young ward...again.

Emerald and sapphire watched the arrow sail through the air...and strike the edge of the target with a single, solid thunk.

Cupid couldn't believe her eyes for that brief moment.

In all honesty, the adamant angel couldn't have cared less if the arrow hit the target or not. Was she pleased with herself that the stupid hunk of wood and sharpened metal did just what she witnessed them do? Of course she was! Even before she'd become a Guardian (as far as she could remember at least), she had always made a point to be proud of her own accomplishments, no matter how small they were. This principle proved steadfast in her adherence to it especially whenever she would teach the younger kids at the orphanage, even though the names and faces of her wards still lay murky and distorted in her memory.

Her entire sense of awareness tunneled down until only she, that target, and that little arrow embedded into it were all that existed in her mind's eyes. However, when that moment finally passed, she felt the corners of her mouth perk up—the first real grin she'd had in weeks. _'I...I did it. I really did it.'_

"Good, now keep at it." The angel girl jolted around to face the rabbit with a look of confusion and shock. Bunny raised an eyebrow in incredulity, not even the slightest hint of a smile cracking on his muzzle. "What? One measly arrow finally lands an' you think that's it? Nice try—now take anotha' arrow an' ge' it right this time!"

'_Wouldn't mind seeing how __**you'd**__ like one of these little suckers to get stuck up right where the sun don't shine!'_ But this thought never vocalized into an insult or anything of similar nature. This time, Cupid kept her lips sealed...for she already knew what the price for further disobedience would be.

Not that she wasn't used to such threats—she could vaguely recall times of being given such warnings that taken place prior to her induction as the oversized hare's apprentice. What proved impressionable in her mind, though, was how real the harsh hare's promises of reprimand were. The Pooka's gritty voice held no hesitation yet no falsehood, either. If he'd need to clock her, right as rain he'd clock her! If he would have to push her through hours of grueling, mind-numbing practice and physical training, then— damn it—that was what he'd set out to do.

He stuck by her.

Even after all the trouble she'd intentionally brought upon him...He took her attitude, her temper, and her ways of rebellion in stride and was not afraid to stand firm against any of it. Fuzzbucket could have easily have thrown his hands in the air and screamed, "That's it! I'm done with this brat!" He could have demanded that weird time guy—Warp, right?—to take her back and let one of those other Guardians train her. He didn't necessarily have to put up with her.

He put up with her anyway.

And for better or worse, he had no plans of giving up on her. Even if he had to force her to run herself until she was ragged and barely breathing, he would not give even the slightest inch in training her. In a way, he believed she could become a real Guardian. He thought she could really, actually, and honestly be a worthy warrior.

He had faith in her.

And as much as Cupid knew she'd hate herself in the morning for admitting this iota of unwanted emotion...an inkling of respect for that boot-camp instructor of a rabbit blossomed in her heart that day, thanks to such a sweeping revelation. For that reason, fewer words than before, save for the occasional "got it, fur-face" and "yeah, yeah," escaped the girl's tongue. For the first time since her training's beginning, she'd been one-hundred percent cooperative.

At first glance, Bunny apparently noticed nothing of this subtle change in disposition, even in the months—and eventually years—that would follow. To him, it was merely business as usual.

Not all true...Deep down, a part of him, once the revelation had been realized, reveled in the fact that he no longer needed to resort to threats of physical altercation. Even with his own children, the idea of punishing a young one through base means always sent a pang of guilt and sadness through his heart...especially now, now that he was to be a protector of the entire world's children. At the same time, though, certain types of discipline, despite the opinions of others on the matter, work on only certain types of people. As such, Bunnymund had to resort to a means of language this hothead of a girl could understand. Otherwise, the two of them would get nowhere fast.

So he trained her and trained her and trained her.

Only at the end of a particular training session, five weeks down the road, after a tired Cupid managed to strike the bull's eye five times in a row, did the Easter Bunny finally smile.

* * *

But even E. Aster Bunnymund could have never been capable of predicting what would occur on the same night as the day of his protégé's promising sign of progress...

**Knock, Knock, Knock...**

The Pooka grumbled to himself before hopping (no pun intended) out of his bed and stomping all the way to the wooden door from where the offending noise originated. _'Too big ta be one o' my egglettes, so that anklebiter had bettah be up an' about fo' a good reason...'_

All thoughts of rebuttal stopped dead and cold in his mind the minute the Easter Bunny swung that door open to give the firecracker a piece of his damn mind...and instead landed his eyes on a tearful Cupid, the sleeves of her way-too-big salmon-pink pajama vest shielding her hands from view, her toes barely visible under the dark purple pants. Her navy blue eyes shimmered in a mist only attainable by fear of great proportions.

'_Fear...'_ Amazing how a single word could send a shockwave of defensive instincts surging through one's body...

But speculation and theorizing would have to wait until morning.

For now, Bunny disregarded the possible causes—and culprit—and kept his focus on the timid girl standing in his doorway. Her tiny shoulders trembled, her breath entering and escaping in short, stifled sniffles, her lower lip quivering ever so slightly. Even to a hardened warrior, the sight of her, nearly on the verge of tears, amounted to total heartbreak and utter sympathy.

Bunny was not one to pity others, at least not very easily. Yet he couldn't bring himself to order Cupid to cease her tears and return to bed immediately. Being tough and firm did not equate to being callous. He sighed to himself deeply and slowly before reopening his eyes and tenderly smiling down at the child. Bending down on one knee, Bunnymund swiftly scooped his little doe into his lean, muscular arms and cradled her snugly and closely into the deep fur of his chest. Cupid's sniffling stopped almost immediately. No smile came but her tiny hands gripped the Pooka's long chest fur in tight bundles. Tears held back finally escaped her eyelids and began drenching Bunnymund's captive fur. The Guardian of Hope could feel some of the hairy tendrils of his body clinging against the static-filled shirt. Bringing her into his grip more so that her head rested just below his groomed chin, Bunnymund released a sigh of content and started to stroke the soft, delicate skin of the cheek of the soothed spirit curled up in his grasp.

A sudden noise filled the air, confusing Bunny for a moment before he realized the origin of said sound. Cupid had dozed off in the warm, cozy embrace of her guardian and was already snoring lightly in her sleep, nightmares no longer plaguing her tonight. The Pooka Guardian merely chuckled to himself quietly as his emerald irises drank in the sight of the slumbering cherub.

'_Just like a baby...sometimes I forget how fragile she can be...' _

* * *

**Yes, more Bunny/Cupid cuteness! Was this chapter too short, by the way? I always end making my chapters either too short or too long, but I feel quite satisfied with how this one came out.**


	6. A Mother's Promise

**This chapter is inspired by Heather Dale's "Mordred's Lullaby." Nathan, his mother, and the Queen, along with anyone and anything else non-canon to Rise of the Guardians, belongs to me. Pitch and anyone and anything else canon belongs to William Joyce and Dreamworks Animation.**

* * *

The grey-furred Pooka child trembled. For the first time ever in his short life (and certainly not the last)...he trembled. Of all the stories he had heard, even the grisly tale of his kind's descent to the brink of extinction could not compare to the horrific betrayal orchestrated by the one called...

"E. Aster Bunnymund."

His mother's usually cool, soothing voice spoke that single name in a harsh, venomous hiss. A visible tremor reverberated down the kit's tiny spine, olive green eyes wide with terror towards the dark tone of the maternal figure. The boy shook his head in numb shock, still unable to believe the words he had heard. He tilted his tiny head "But...why?"

The tall, beautiful maiden rabbit halted in her pacing, her gracefully arching back to the boy. His confusion was understandable enough. The black-furred mistress swiveled so that her mahogany eyes displayed compassion upon her son. Like an elegant shadow, the Pooka woman strolled to the wooden chair in which her son sat until she loomed over him from the side, her umbra blanketing his tiny figure like a guardian shadow. The kit's trembling did not cease.

"Because...he couldn't take the confines and restrictions of tribal life; to be the supposed son of the chief could not satisfy him. He wanted _more_!" she threw head back and arms back in theatrical emphasis. "So what did he do? He tricked Pitch into thinking he could convince the humans to accept the Pookas as equals."

Her son gasped in shock at the mention of the Nightmare King's name. "But...isn't Pitch Black supposed ta be bad, Momma?"

His parent puckered her lips in a gently reproaching manner, her arms lowering themselves and hand clasping each other. "Oh no, no, no, sweetie, that's not true at all. Yes, Pitch controls the Nightmares but that's only because he understands them for what they truly are: helpless fledglings discarded by those selfish humans. What so few fail to realize," she continued as she bent down on one knee and tenderly stroked the cheek of the kit hanging upon her every word, "...is that they're merely as vulnerable and scared as we are."

"You mean they're jus' like us? But how come they give kids nightmares?" his voice began to crack at the end for he could still remember all too well the ghastly effects the Nightmares imposed on him two nights ago. Thank Mother Nature that nightmares, like dreams, were ever rarely capable of being recalled in full lucidity, especially by children.

The mother shook her head. "Oh but that's just it. They don't _cause_ the nightmares. Those gruesome images you see...? Those are the visual results of the Nightmares eliminating the sadness, anger, and rage in children. You see, my son...in such a cold, cruel world, the children, especially the human ones, are highly susceptible to the sinful corruptions that lie in waiting, waiting to strike out and snuff out a poor child's innocence. That's why the nightmares you received the other night were so terrifying, Nathan. Without the Nightmares to whisk the corruptions away, your nights would have been even worse than either of us would have ever imagined."

At once, innocence and faith detected no falsehood in the mother's words. Nathan's eyes turned downcast in serious thought, almost as if the boy were ashamed of himself for never considering such an idea. "I...neva' thought of it like dat."

A soft pat on the head encompassed the response to his meek admittance; the kit raised his line of sight and caught his mother's soft smile. "Oh, that's alright, Nat, sweetie. That's why you have _me_ to take care of you...and to make sure you become the hero you are meant to be."

Nathan perked upon hearing those words. Him...? A hero...? Was that possible? He widened his eyes at his mother as if to confirm her words weren't part of some silly joke. "R-Really...?"

"Of course...! Of course...!" The mother smiled widely and supportively as she clapped her hands together. "Would I ever lie to you?"

To Nathan, that question was absolutely silly, flat out laughable! "Course not—cuz mommies don't lie ta their kits!" He puffed out his chest to illustrate his confidence.

"That's my boy...!" The elder Pooka pinched the boy's cheeks (meeting a little resistance from him as a result but nothing to warrant a rebuttal), allowed him to hop off the chair, and then nudged him into the direction of his bedroom. All the while a saccharine smile remained on her face. "Now get some rest, sweetie. We have a big day tomorrow!"

With a tired but chipper smile, Nathan waved to the elder. "Night, Mommy!"

His mother returned the gesture in full as he continued his way down the hall. "Goodnight, my little angel!"

And off went her son, blissfully waiting for tomorrow with a light heart. Only when the kit had completely turned the corner did the mother's smile fall, melting into a neutral expression void of all emotion save for cold, calculating cunning.

"Is he gone?" an airy yet hauntingly baritone voice suddenly inquired from out of nowhere. It seemed to reverberate from the very shadows of the castle room itself, causing the shadows to ebb in and out like a dark ocean tide. Mother knew better.

"Yes..."

Seconds after the emergence of this blunt answer (during which the rabbit never even turned to address the voice's unseen source), the King of Nightmares wisped into visibility, hands behind his back, black robe whishing from his movements, and gray, gaunt face dominated by a cringing frown of mild mortification. "Ugh, good, I can't stand when you get like that." Pitch pinched the bridge of his hook-shaped nose. "It's enough to make my Nightmares retch."

In a show of clear exasperation, the lady lapine shook her head at the nightmare apparition's dramatics.

Before she could rebuke him, though, a new, feminine voice, tinted with an unidentifiable accent, wryly piped up, apparently in agreement with the mother's thoughts, "Pitch, Pitch, Pitch—you of all beings should know well enough that deception must sometimes call for...compromising alternatives."

Fading into view just in the doorway entrance of the dining room, a shapely, middle-aged woman regarded the two dark-clad figures with icy grey eyes. Ironically, her sterling white wardrobe, Elizabethan in style, consisted of a grand neck frill, puffy white shoulder tuffs accented around the elbow by band of gold, the sleeves jutting out of it until ending at the wrists with similar-looking golden bands, a corset-looking torso with black strings interlaced into the silken fabric of the dress itself, a sort of ornamental, silver belt joining the dress with sinfully gorgeous ruffles that ballooned out to the floor like an upside-down rose preserved in death.

Clink-clank went two sharp high-heels as the Queen (as Pitch and Mother "affectionately" called her) trotted her way down alongside the expansive table and to her allies, midnight black beehive-styled hair bouncing up and down with each step, her painted red lip smile practically chilling in spite of the warmth exuded by the lights hovering high above. She gestured one of her slim hands, its long claw-like nails glinting almost dangerously, as she continued, "The way to a child's heart is through trust, after all, is it not?"

Mother Rabbit stoically nodded, thankful for the supportive point; she turned her attention back to Pitch. "And the only way through trust is to know where to put the right labels on the right people."

The King of Nightmares merely raised an eyebrow in amusement. He still sometimes struggled with the reality that that annoying rabbit Guardian, Bunnymund, was not the last of the Pookas as most people (or at least people knowledgeable of such mythical beings) assumed for so long. All the same, he understood perfectly well the convoluted yet well-thought out machination Jezebel had in store for her little Nathan.

'_I almost feel sorry for the boy...,'_ the ebony spook shrugged his shoulders, dismissing the sympathy instantaneously, _'Oh well, that's how the dream crumbles, after all.'_

* * *

Nathan, utterly oblivious of the future in store for him, sighed in content as he continued his merry way down the hallway to his bedroom...He had nothing to worry about. Mommy knew what was right.

'_Yeah, Mommy never lies.'_ She never lies to him. She'd never lie to him...but...

The kit's smile waned. Opening the door then closing it with a resounding bang, Nathan, deep in the shadowy confines of his room, at last allowed his smile to melt into a frown as he dropped face-down into his soft bed.

...were there some things even Mommy didn't know? Nathan felt certain, for a fact, that she suspected, much less knew, nothing of the flashes of memory that plagued him at night and, more recently, at day. At first, they would only occur in his dreams every few nights...sometimes even months apart—Nathan couldn't quite pinpoint when they'd first began; for all he knew, these astral oddities could have been happening since his birth, their existence only becoming recognizable to him since some time in some relatively recent point in the past. Then their occurrences become more and more frequent...until every night bristled and brimmed with them...

And now, they were already starting to cross over into his mind _outside_ of sleep. Whenever he'd go outside to play, flashes of color would dash by him while snippets of voices and sounds echoed in his ears...only for him to turn around and realize no one was there but him. Thankfully, Mommy and her three friends hadn't noticed, as far as the kit knew; Nathan wouldn't have wanted to upset them anyway.

'But who'm I gonna talk to? Dese dreams aren't scawy...I just dont get 'em.'

From what he could understand (and he had a hunch that much was just the tip the proverbial iceberg of mystery), these dreams acted out like scenes from someone else's life...rabbits just like him: other Pookas...even though the species was supposed to have been dead for centuries...

And the craziest part...well Nathan struggled on debating on whether it was the fact that he sometimes saw himself in the dreams, too...or that he sometimes saw himself alongside Bunnymund...

Playing with him...

Laughing with him...

Being cradled and comforted by him...

All of those actions sounded exactly like what a real father would do for his kit...at least in Nathan's mind. So what was happening then? What—or who—could be causing him to see this version of Bunnymund—this kind, if not temperamental and even somewhat mischievous version—that utterly contradicted every story about him? Was he even as evil as Mother suggested he was? Was this whole issue one giant misunderstanding? Two sides not seeing the big picture at all...?

If only the young kit had help...a hint of some kind...a simple clue as to how to solve this mystery...

He needed the Moon Man's advice...bad.

An odd sense of daring boldness peaked in the young kit, urging him to come to the window. So he did just that—not that he minded, of course. Nathan always loved to gaze at the moon; Mother grimaced at it for reasons the innocent child simply could not fathom. What could possibly be wrong with the Moon anyway? It was easy to gaze at, unlike the Sun, beautiful with its ivory white set against the starlit background of the black nighttime sky, perfectly circle, and, most importantly, a great source of comfort...at least in Nat's case.

He'd never told anyone this secret before, but...there were times when the Moon talked to him. Not so much with words as much with light—Nathan couldn't quite say how he understood such a peculiar mode of communication...but he comprehended it as simply as he would written words. The advice the Moon Man gave, even when it sounded like riddles or something taken out of a book for grown-ups, never failed to instill a sense of ease—of peace— in the kit.

Especially now...Something strange was about to happen soon; Nathan just knew for some reason...and he possessed a strong inkling that Moon Man did, as well. Nathan tilted his tiny head down, jade eyes closed in prayer, hoping..._begging_ for the Moon to hear his concerns.

Unfortunately, Moon Man was particularly silent tonight...for the most part. The luminance projected by his representative orb even maintained its usual glow, a rarity in itself that never failed to unnerve Nathan. He did, however, offer one response to the young boy. _'The answer will come to you. You just need a little patience.'_

'_Wait...what?'_ Those two sentences merely echoed back and forth in Nathan's mind, their significance utterly lost on the boy. His eyelids blinked in utter bafflement and helpless anxiety, unable to fight the sleep threatening to coerce the drowsy kit to the floor. The hazy glow of the lunar sphere high above only exacerbated his drowsy condition. Thus, Nathan, disappointed at the turnout but beyond the need to egg the Moon Man further for better answers, reluctantly dragged his body into bed.

And as he draped the blankets over his tiny body, Nathan shot one more look at the moonlight streaming through his window. The answer wouldn't be coming anytime soon...but that fact didn't necessarily mean there was none at all. Perhaps the problem just needed a little time to reveal more of itself. Only then would Nathan (hopefully) be able to discern the cryptic message.

Right now, though, sleep had to take top priority. The kit certainly wouldn't be able to figure any mysteries if his head couldn't be capable of staying up for even five seconds. Besides, there was plenty of time to figure everything out, right?

The young Pooka grinned at this assurance as his eyelids finally drooped closed, a tiny yawn escaping the furry cherub._ 'Yeah...it's gonna be okay. It's all gonna be okay.'_

Everything would look okay in the morning.

He just knew it.

* * *

**This chapter is more or less a prelude to other chapters that will also revolve around Nathan, as well as around the rest of my OCs for this fandom. **


	7. Redefine

**The "Dearly Beloved" song version from Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days _really_ helped me with this chapter!**

* * *

**Redefine**

A shadowy form peeked out from within the confines of his bush. The concealed figure instinctively smiled at the scene before him.

Even after all his years of assassin's training, Nathan could never disregard the lift his heart experienced every time his long ears caught the bright laughter of children. The black, zebra-like marks that skimmed all over his broad back blended nicely with the shadow cast over him by the protective foliage, his natural grey-white fur doing just as well with the light able to seep through the seeps and cracks of his sanctuary.

As the newly-aged adult observed, a large group of children sat around a large oak tree, the shade provided by its expansive canopy shielding them from the harsh glow of the summertime noon sun. Seated Indian-style and in a loose semi-circle, the young ones paid particular, eager attention to the older woman seated before them, her slender back leaning against the strong bark of the tree.

Dressed in a blue, denim apron, a long-sleeved, white undershirt, matching, knee-length skirt, and a pair of, to the Pooka's amused interest, black-and-white sneakers, the woman—the teacher, apparently—read from a book balanced precariously across her lap, golden hair contained by a single red hairband into a frizzy pony tail, her delicate hands cradling the book as if the bound stack of paper and hardback were a living thing—an infant even.

The notion itself reminded Nathan of his childhood dreams...of sweet smelling grass and a warm, glowing sun amidst a pale-azure heaven...

All the while he gazed, half-transfixed, half-interested, the blonde mistress read aloud to the children a story Nathan could have reiterated in his sleep on account of the amount of times he'd already heard it. Regardless, the Pooka kept his stare on the gestures and expressions the human interjected into her storytelling every few seconds. What struck the rabbit as even more fascinating were the sound effects the female used to illustrate the actions and words of the characters, particularly for the villains and monsters.

The children couldn't have been anymore engrossed than their secret spectator was; all of them hung by the edge of their seats (metaphorically speaking), treating this story-time rather as if it were a movie chock full of exhilarating action-sequences and shocking developments.

Time, as it usually does to the unwary, slipped away seamlessly, Nathan somewhat started when the blonde female suddenly shut the book with a brisk clamp. Unfortunately, his response inadvertently caused the bushes to rustle from the resulting movement...just enough for one of the children to notice.

Nathan could almost curse himself for his own recklessness!

"Something wrong, TJ?"

The tiny boy hastily swiveled his head forward to face his teacher, his brown eyes wide-eyed from both the wonder and curiosity of whatever could be lurking in the bushes...and slight apprehension...Was whatever in that bush a wild animal? "N-no, ma'am...I thought I saw a, uh, uh...a bunny rabbit!"

His teacher merely stared at him in mild but bemused disbelief. Nathan couldn't blame her. _'Heck, that kid's excuse is actually more spot-on than he might think.'_

But then the Pooka realized something that rooted his feet straight to the ground. She'd been staring right at him. That woman, for a breath of a second (long enough for the lapine to catch but short enough for the child not to notice), had stared right at him.

Not around or past him. Right—at—_him_...

The zebra-striped Pooka remained in his hiding place, his olive emerald eyes half-hidden behind the leaves to maintain a cover that wouldn't compromise his ability to analyze the woman's next move. To his sweet relief, the teacher easily manage to draw away the attention of the boy, as well as that of the other children, some interested and others confused by what could've caught the eye of their fellow classmate.

Barely a minute passed before the woman promptly stood up, the book tucked underneath her arm, same warm smile cast upon her students, and issued a final address involving something called "hum work" before signaling dismissal with a wave of her free hand. **(1) **All the children whooped and hollered with delight before running off to a distant line of cars where other adults appeared to be awaiting the swarming youngsters.

Only when all the cars, save for a modest, blue one, had gone, did the teacher, now the only person (well, human one anyway) left in the field of the park, return her line of sight to the bushes. Though no smile graced her lips anymore, a definite light of wonder, the same one that had taken possession of her student not too long ago, crossed her emerald eyes. Traces of what Nathan could only label as nostalgia flickered in her irises, too.

Warily but surely, the woman took a single step towards the bush that hid her spectator. The time taken by this action felt like a year, even though, in reality, it'd merely taken a second.

Neither figures said anything for what felt like an eternity.

Forget feeling rooted; Nathan swore something just _nailed_ his feet to the ground instead. There no longer lay any doubt in his mind that this human was looking right at him. Incapacitating her was out of the question entirely, the meaning of it enough to trigger a nauseous sensation in Nathan's stomach.

_'Dang it, none of my training prepared me for this!'_ Mother warned him multiple times that humans loved nothing more than fearing the unknown, more so hating it. Indeed, the young Pooka could detect glimpses of fear in the woman's eyes.

At the same time, though...he also couldn't dismiss the way the human's eyes were sparkling in his direction. They were actually making his heart skip beats.

On second thought, maybe conserving with this female human couldn't hurt, after all. Besides, Mother hadn't been _completely _right about humans, and Nathan viewed the idea of being a recluse for the rest of his life as both depressing and pathetic. _'C'mon Nate...even an assassin's gotta have social skills, right? You can do this!'_

Oh man, he _seriously _wished he could believe his inner voice right now. His own tongue kept letting the words die before they ever properly left his throat. How was he going to break the ice like this?

Thankfully, there lay no need for him to because the teacher handled that matter herself. Tilting her head inquisitively, the beautiful human lowly uttered, just low enough for Nathan to still hear her, "Bunny...?"

Every muscle of the addressed tightened instantaneously, a shot of panic striking through the Pooka. Bunny—that nickname belonged to—Nathan shook his head in fervent disbelief, both frightened and lost for answers on what course of action to take next.

After that near-disaster in the Lost Lands, which resulted in Cupid, of all Guardians, saving him, no less, and going further by allowing him to accompany the winged archer and her friends back to this dimension (even after she discovered her stepfather to be the target of the would-be assassin), Nathan made a solemn, self-imposed oath to purposely avoid Bunnymund and anyone else associated with him.

In retrospective, he supposed he should've taken the risk of a former ward of the Aussie Easter Bunny spotting him more seriously. Nathan knew for a fact that only children could see the Guardians, unlike some spirits like Anansi and Robin Goodfellow who either rarely or never made their presence known to mortals at all or other spirits like the Cootians who could appear and disappear their presences in front of humans by free will.

So naturally, he assumed only _children_ had to be avoided wherever he traversed; this rule hadn't changed a bit from his time in the Lost Lands and certainly wouldn't have changed here anytime soon either. Besides, adults were good at fooling themselves, weren't they? No way in a million years would any of them expect to see or have seen a walking, talking, five foot plus tall rabbit.

Goodbye to _that_ comforting line of thought...

And the cherry on top of the proverbial "bad luck" sundae: this woman had to be an extremely close friend of the Guardian of Hope to expect meeting him in spite of her mature age. Nathan surely couldn't just pop his head out and greet her with his awkward, toothy smile. Worse, what if she figured out his mission? Well...his _ex_-mission...

_'Hi there, I'm Nathaniel Hopson, former assassin of E. Aster Bunnymund, who, coincidentally, happens to be a best friend of yours! Small world, huh?' _Nathan slapped a hand to his forehead the second he ran that sentence through his mind. Oh yeah...that intro would _definitely_ lighten the mood.

With no warning at all, the leaves right in front of him suddenly parted, cast aside by the delicate hands and thus exposing the lapine cutthroat in all his unwilling, unprepared, monochromatic glory!

For a split second, the woman's face mirrored his, emerald into olive, neither one daring to make any further move. After that second, however, the blonde tilted her head at the humanoid bunny again, her faintly pink lips quirked in a lopsided grin of interest.

Nathan struggled deciding whether to flee, never to come across this city again, or to stay and let this woman satisfy her fascination in him. _'Why do I get the feeling I'm in for a long day?'_

"I'm not going to hurt you."

Though her voice carried into the air in a soothing tone, Nathan still jumped a bit upon hearing it. "Y...you're not?"

The blonde merely shrugged her shoulders. "Course not; why should I?"

Nathan nearly blurted out a few choice ideas why she probably should, but smartly kept his mouth shut. No sense in raising the difficulty of his situation...

"W-well, it's just, uh...," the Pooka looked away to the ground, deep in thought over his next words. "I know not too many folks would react as calmly to the sight of a giant rabbit as you." Nathan, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly, looked the young woman in the eyes again. "I kinda half-expected you to take off either the second you saw me...or the second I started talking." He blushed hotly and darkly, thankful for his deep fur, which hid his colored cheeks from view of his company.

The woman giggled as she futilely tried to stifle the sound with the hand not holding the book. Nathan wouldn't admit this fact out loud, but he rather...enjoyed her giggling. It sounded bubbly and pure, like light and water merged and transmuted together into sound. Like bells ringing their crisp voices into the summertime sky...

"My name is Sophie. What's your name—that is...if you don't telling me," Sophie tucked a lock of hair behind her ear out of nervousness; she didn't mean to sound so forward.

To her relief, Nathan displayed no signs of discomfiture, especially when he waved his hands in an assuring manner. "No! No...um, Nathaniel...Nathaniel Hopson...that's my name."

Still squatted in front of the bush, Sophie brought to a finger to her chin and hummed to herself, seemingly in deep thought, before she returned her attention to the larger rabbit crouched in front of her. "Don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way, but...Do _all_ Pookas have names like yours and Bunny's...or is that just because you're a little different?"

Nathan scrunched his eyelids in confusion. "Wait...like mine and Bunnymund's...? What's that mean?"

The blonde shrugged again, only this time out of interest. "Well, Bunnymund, Hopson...are all Pooka names so...punny?"

A few seconds passed before the meaning of those words finally clicked in Nathan's head. "Are all—Pft, no, of course not! Well, not that I'm not too sure myself. The only other Pooka I've ever known besides Mr. Bunnymund was my mother and she—"

...

Sophie knitted her eyebrows in deep concern, her hand posed as if wishing to reach out to the pensive rabbit, whose stare focused on something beyond both her and time itself, "Nathan...? Are you alright?"

As a matter of fact...he wasn't. Memories surged forth in a rush...pain...lies...losses...all of them bitter pills that he had no choice but to swallow and accept...

But the most bitter of all...watching the face of the same person who had been there for him all his childhood...disappear underneath layers upon layers of Nightmares...and what that shell of her former self nearly did to Cupid and the others...to the children.

Holding grudges held no part in Nathan's character. Hating his mother would do nothing but amplify the rotten feelings associated with those memories of her. He still loved her. He'd always love her...even if she had never been his biological mother to begin with...

He just wasn't blind anymore to the cruelty and power-lust that blotted out the woman's sense of love and care. Just as Nathan made his own choice, so did his mother. And she paid the price for her mistakes in the end just as well.

All Nathan could do on her behalf was move on. Her old self would have preferred that over him grieving for the rest of his life over the choices of someone else, even if that someone else had been her.

Sophie, on the other hand, never noticed all of this introspection. All she could see was a young man (or rabbit, in this case) coping for the loss of a parent the best way he knew how. Indeed, as she watched on in concern, Nathan, his eyes closed, tilted his head skyward and exhaled as slowly as the breeze gently blowing over the oddball pair.

"Oh...I'm really sorry." Sophie looked away and rubbed her arm in sincere shame. If she had known better, she would've never asked that insensitive question. "I didn't know."

A gentle grip on her left shoulder tugged the blonde's attention back to the Pooka, whose whole head was now peeking out of the bush in full view. "No...it didn't happen like that. Mom...lost it, for a lack of a better term. She had problems accepting her lot in life and...It cost her."

Nathan stiffened when he suddenly felt two arms wrap around his neck and pull his head into the crook of Sophie's neck, her smooth skin cool and soft against the rabbit's fur.

"That must have been horrible," she whispered into his long ears, her tone full of clear, frank sympathy.

In spite of initial reluctance, Nathan wrapped an arm around her in return and patted her back, as if _she_ were the one grieving over a loved one. "Yeah...it really hurt. What hurt even more, though, was that she brought it upon herself."

The meaning of these words incited Sophie to back her head up so she could look the rabbit in the eye. "What do you mean?"

To her great confusion and slight annoyance, Nathan merely smiled and shook his head. "We might want to take this conversation to the tree. I don't think people are going to ignore the sight of a grown lady like you talking to a bunch of plants."

Sophie blushed at how she never realized until now this obvious fact. "Point taken..."

* * *

"And now here I am...a past I can't take back—not that I'd ever want to anyway—and a future I'm not sure of anymore..."

A story of which he'd been silent to tell all these years...and now here he was, sharing his life-story with an absolute stranger...Did someone, for whatever reason, spike the carrots he had for lunch? _'Or maybe I'm too trusting for my own good, after all?'_

"You could always go to the Guardians!" Sophie offered, her face brightening at the idea. "They might not look like it, but they could use the extra help!"

Nathan shook his head vehemently at the idea. "Wha...no, no, Sophie, I can't do that! They'll..."

"Nathan," his blonde companion cut off with a stern glare, "Jack told me the Man in the Moon picked him because his destiny would be to become a Guardian; Manny wouldn't have picked you if you weren't meant to be one, too." Her face then softened when a sudden thought occurred to her. "You don't really think they'd attack you, do you?"

Of course, they wouldn't—Nathan knew that! The Guardians were protectors, not bullies!

Still...what if the Big Five held ill feelings towards him for his involvement against their fellow Guardians? His actions against Hally, Cupid, and Roy, and eventually Robin Goodfellow, as well, would at least elicit negative responses, regardless of whether or not he'd only been following orders at the time.

"Maybe not attack, but...," Nathan released a heavy sigh, "It's Mr. Bunnymund I'm scared of the most."

Sophie looked away for a moment, her eyes narrowed in concentration, before she slowly refaced the Pooka with a serious, questioning stare. "Do you truthfully, _seriously_ want Bunny to forgive you?"

Nathan nodded without hesitation. "It would definitely be nice. If there's one thing I _don't_ need, it's an increase in enemies...especially after all the lies fed to me about Mr. Bunnymund."

"Then he'll forgive you!" Sophie earnestly insisted, the light in her eyes dancing more than ever before. "Bunny may look all tough and mean, but he's just a big softie deep down. And if he doesn't accept your apology, then just come to me," she thumbed herself in the chest, "_I'll_ talk sense into him."

A brief chuckle escaped the rabbit at the young woman's show of confidence. "Sophie...you know you don't have to—"

"I don't have to. I _want_ to." Sophie tilted her head before continuing. "You're a really good person, Nate. I can tell. You deserve a chance, especially after everything you've been through."

Nothing of a proper statement of gratitude could register in Nate's head; the young lapine's heart felt too full of a myriad of emotions brought about by the willingness to help just displayed by the bold blonde. _'She's so full of hope; it's no wonder Mr. Bunnymund's so fond of her.' _"Say Sophie..."

"You want me over as back-up? Well, I think I can find room in my busy schedule—, "She even so far as to go into a thinking posture, even though the rabbit knew the offer had been genuine.

Nathan couldn't keep himself from laughing at his new friend's sense of humor. As soon as he recovered, he gestured his hand to stop her. "No, no, not that; I just want to ask you something..."

"Okay, shoot."

A single moment of hesitation came for the Pooka...and vanished just as quickly. Nathan wasted no time in donning that same kind of smile that only his eyes could match.

"When can I see you again?"

* * *

**The way I figured, Sophie would grow up to be a pretty confident person, a trait no doubt learned from a certain Easter Kangaroo. (Catches Bunny's glare) Eh, heh, heh...anyway feel free to drop a review on the way out.**

**(1) And yes, I'm planning to give Nate Megamind's tendency to mince words. XD**


	8. Alone Again

**This chapter won't be in plot with "Cookie." My intention here is merely characterization—and some more practice with Jack. I still only own Hally and my OCs.**

* * *

**Alone Again**

Until he met her, Jack Frost always believed he'd be alone.

Until she welcomed him into her castle, Jack Frost always thought no one would ever see anything in him besides a worthless trouble-maker.

Until she hugged him goodbye, something she did after every single visit, Jack Frost always assumed he could never be real to anyone.

The Guardian of Halloween proved him wrong...many, _many_ times.

* * *

_Their first meeting, in all honesty, was more of an accident than anything else. _

_At the time, Jack was merely riding the wind, his only loyal companion (save for the staff, of course), his form drifting somewhere above the plains of northern Germany, the skies grey with thick, dark clouds. _

_He'd thoroughly enjoyed his trip to Alaska, where his powers delivered a heaping helping of snow to the city of Anchorage. Granted, the winter sprite didn't normally visit such far-northern places since the climate was already frigid to begin with. _

_Even so, though, Jack always considered the auroras there quite a sight worth catching, so he hung out around the area for a little while. _

_Natural beauties like the Aurora Borealis always helped Jack take his mind off of his situation...at least momentarily. At one-hundred years old, comfort didn't come as easily as it would in later centuries. Ever since his "birth", Jack could never permanently relieve himself of a nagging sense of...incompletion._

_Over and over, his memories, no matter how many times he scanned them, only amounted to vague images—faces of people he swore he had never met...in spite of a nagging sense suggesting otherwise. _

_Eventually, Jack tired of the constant reminders of this feeling of memorial chasm, so decided to let the problem go. Even in hindsight, this move proved very helpful for it brought him a solid degree of ease, thus allowing him to stick to what an ice spirit like him does best: fun and pranks._

_But so far the decision only pushed away the hollowness. It didn't do as well in pushing away the lonesomeness. It didn't make him anymore visible to people...especially to the children._

_And the mythical spirits encountered during his existence so far rarely proved to be pleasant substitutes. Only Sandman (or Sandy, as Jack liked to called the chubby, golden man) and the strange hummingbird creatures ever turned out to be pleasurable company—and even then such meetings could only last for so long._

_Pranks and tricks accomplished nothing in the way of earning Jack a firm reputation in the eyes of certain spirits either._

**_'Well, it's not my fault people don't know how to have fun,'_**_ Jack thought to himself in annoyance. __**'Especially the Kangaroo.' **_

_A smirk stretched across the spirit's face at the memory of the Aussie rabbit. Bunnymund and Jack never did manage to see eye to eye...mostly because of personality clashes and a difference in opinion as far as jokes were concerned, especially during Easter. __**'You'd think that stick-in-the-mud rabbit had a giant carrot stuck up his—'**_

_"AH!"_

_"WHOA!"_

_These exclamations and the accompanying halt in both Jack's thoughts and flight arose from the sudden appearance of a figure clad in black and some orange, also yelping in shock at the other's sudden appearance._

_Judging by the high-pitched, feminine scream, Jack instantly realized he'd almost knocked a woman clean out of the dreary afternoon sky. _

_Now this trickster didn't normally apologize for when something goes amiss because of him—he __**was **__a spreader of mischief, after all. However, Jack would be lying through his teeth if he ever stated he lacked a shred of decency. Even __**his**__ pranks had to have their limits._

_Before the winter sprite could apologize, though..._

_"Oh, I swear, these skies are getting so much harder to navigate nowadays!" the blonde witch suddenly piped up, readjusting her pointy, belted hat. She immediately noticed the young man floating in front of her. _

_"Oh, _**_Verzeihung! _**_I should have been watching where I was going! Clumsy me! Are you alright, sweetie? I hope I didn't crash into you too badly! I am Hally O. Ween! What's your name, if you don't my asking and you wouldn't by any chance be planning a trick on someone, would you?"_

_"Uh..." Wow...Jack had no idea where to start answering this lady—especially since she'd blurted out all those words on one breath. _

_Stunned expression still in place, he chose to hover where he remained in the sky, sitting Indian-style with the staff in his lap as if he were seated on solid ground. _

_The sorceress on the strange-looking, silvery metallic apparatus continued staring at him with a cheery smile that made her look much younger than her age suggested. _

_"Um...Yeah, I'm okay, my name's Jack Frost, and, no, I am not planning a trick on someone." A smirk passed over his pale face right after the utterance of the last part. "Well...not yet at least..."_

_"O, my goodness!" Hally suddenly exclaimed what could only be described as maternal concern. Jack, jumping a bit at the tone, perked a white eyebrow at the woman's behavior._

_"W-What?"_

_He didn't expect the woman to stare incredulously at him as if he were a vampire not noticing the acidic effects of the Sun. "What do you mean 'what?'" She gestured a hand at the boy's lithe form. "Look at yourself, you poor thing!"_

_In a stupor of blank confusion, the snowy-haired spirit merely shifted his eyes from sideway to sideway, his brain currently stalling for a proper, intelligible response. "Um...?"_

_Hally paid his hesitation no mind as evidenced by the manner in which she, once again, gestured her hand, this time signaling the snow sprite to follow her. "Come with me. I have plenty of snacks: cookies, candies, cakes—the whole nine yards!"_

_Believe it or not, Jack felt extremely urged to take this lady up on her kindhearted offer...yet something in the back of his mind stopped him. _

_As tempting as the mage's offer was, Jack couldn't bear the thought of what could happen if something were to go wrong. The reason didn't amount to so much what Jack feared Hally might do to him; he was more afraid of what he himself might end up doing. _

_In spite of 100 years of practice, his icy powers still possessed a nasty habit of slipping beyond his control sometimes. And even after just meeting her for a few minutes, Jack had a good feeling this Hally person had a very generous and kind heart. He inwardly cringed at the thought of accidently hurting someone like her._

_Besides, a decades-long lifestyle of near solitude is a hard one to break._

_The ice sprite shyly looked away. "I don't know..."_

_"Don't worry! I won't try to fatten you up and eat you. That's only an old German fairytale!" Her smile faltered as she looked away and tapped her chin in thought, her thin eyebrows furrowed. "At least, I think it's German."_

_The ice sprite, in spite of his reservations, couldn't help snorting a bit at the elder's sense of humor and absentmindedness._

_"Listen lady, that's...nice of you—and I mean really nice—but I don't think—"_

_Wait a sec...Why is her lower lip gutting out like that? And her eyes weren't not that sparkly a few minutes a—_

_Jack suddenly reeled back in horrified realization. 'Oh no...Please don't be what I think that is.'_

_The dreaded puppy-dog pout? _

_Unfortunately and dreadfully so...He'd seen both human women and children pull off this move countless times before—and with a very high success rate._

_Jack knew he was already a goner, so with shoulders sagging and eyelids dropping down in defeat, the ice spirit heaved a heavy exhale. _

_"Well...," he sighed deeply, "Okay...maybe just one little cookie..."_

* * *

_"And then, they accuse __**me—**__yes, __**me**__—of stealing those flowers-which is absolute crock! I was looking for toadstools, not flowers! Oh sure, they're pretty, but they're practically useless for magic—much too delicate."_

_"Ya don't say?"_

_Right now, Jack Frost was curled up on a dark red, comfortable, plushy armchair, his spindly legs dangling over the arm facing away from Hally, who was seated up straight on a black, gothic-style armchair of her own, a cup of tea clasped in between her pale hands. The sorceress had relieved herself of her black coat and dress-shoes, now clad in only her orange, button-up T-shirt, black, orange rimmed dress, and white, knee-length stockings._

_The Halloween spirit had been doing most of the talking...not that Jack minded at all. In fact, the winter sprite rather enjoyed hearing the elder woman speak about random topics. _

_Sky-diving, banshee-wrestling, dragon-taming—this lady must have done just about everything!_

_'Well, all except beat Nicholas St. North in a fair fight, that is. I swear he always lets his 'Flare Fairy'—that's his name for me, by the way—win because he's so very scared of breaking a fragile thing like me." Hally rolled her eyes at the present-bearer's overprotectiveness. "Hmph, I wouldn't look so fragile if I showed that man some of the monsters I've tangled with!" _

**_'Whoa, and people say _**_I'm__** crazy!'**__ This thought didn't hold malice or ridicule. Jack Frost truthfully, honestly admired the woman's sense of insanity and creativity._

_Eventually, the sorceress threw one of her hands into the air in a tired manner. "Oh, but I've been blabbing on like a time-stuck cuckoo clock for hours by now!" She paused to take a sip of her tea before looking back up at Jack. "I'm certain you've been itching to share something about yourself."_

_Nervousness would have been an understatement to how Jack felt right now. "Uh..."_

_Hally flicked her wrist at him. "But if you don't feel comfortable, I'll understand!"_

_The winter sprite worriedly waved his hand, assuring her, "No...I mean...it just feels kinda...__**weird**__ getting asked that."_

_For the first time since the conversation began, the blonde sorceress lost her carefree demeanor. She furrowed her eyebrows in concern. "Why is that?"_

**_'Should I tell her?'_**_ Jack thought in hesitation. _

_Why not? Here was somebody actually talking to him—not ignoring him, yelling at him, or shrugging him off, but actually talking to him. Who knows when he'd ever gain a chance like this again? _

_With one last look at the curious sorceress, Jack rubbed the back of his neck in a rare show of shyness. "I've...just never been noticed long enough for someone to bother asking me about myself."_

_Hally tilted her head, orange eyes full of questions. "Well, why is that? With hair like that, you're hard to miss."_

_Jack snorted at the comment, but lost his grin at the returning thought of sharing his problems with an absolute stranger. He didn't owe her. He didn't have to tell her. He didn't even have to stay here._

_Her twinkling eyes made him give up on holding everything in the second he looked back up. __**'Dang it, how do women do that with the eyes?!'**_

_Jack threw his hands and sighed in resignation. "Alright, I'll tell. Just enough with the puppy-dog eyes already..."_

_He pointedly ignored the sorceress's look of triumph. _

_"Ever since my...'birth,' I always felt as if something was missing. Like something was wrong with me..." Jack tore his gaze away and directed it to an open window, the darkening sky visible through the glass. "Why else would children pass through me as if I was never there? You probably wouldn't know, but it's not fun trying to get someone's attention, only to have them walk right through you...It hurts."_

_..._

_"Mein Gott...that sounds awful. What about the Guardians—or other spirits in general? Surely a few of them have noticed."_

_In spite of her concern, Jack scoffed and rolled his eyes in annoyance at the mention of the other Guardians. "Pft, oh yeah, getting scoffed at and called a nuisance," he drawled in forced enthusiasm, "what a life..."_

_All of a sudden, Hally narrowed her eyes in anger, an action that caught Jack off-guard and also alarmed him. __**'Oh crap, please tell me I didn't just set an all-powerful enchantress off.'**_

_Oh, the elder woman was set off alright—just not for the reason Jack thought._

_"Bunny said that about you. Didn't he?"_

_"Uh..."_

_"You know what, Jack? I __**thought**__ you looked familiar!" Hally threw her hands in the air in irritation. "Ugh, that rabbit always complains whenever someone tries to play a trick on him. I swear he's never cracked a smile once in his whole existence!"_

_Jack released his breath in deep relief, and was quick to add his two cents._

_"I know right? Just last week, I got it to snow in his Warren. He barked at me like an oversized dog to leave." He cleared his throat before deepening his voice for his best Bunnymund impression. "Get the 'ell out, ya Gumby! I already got too much to worry about for Easter! I don' need a dill like you foulin' my work up!"_

_His impression got Hally cracking up in no time, and before Jack knew he was laughing a storm, too. He had almost forgotten how sad he felt earlier._

_From that point on, everything looked brighter to the ice sprite, even if only by just a little. Every so often, he would drop by the castle and hang out with the Guardian of Bravery. She taught and showed him so many things he'd either only dreamed of or never imagined—about magic, about the castle's residential paranormals (she considered the term "monster" to be more of an insult than anything else), and experiments she and her scientists had been cooking up lately._

_No visit ever came close to being boring for the winter spirit._

_This routine went for ten years and Jack knew how soon Hally would always be ready every visit, stories and snacks lined up and waiting for him._

_If only he'd known how soon she'd disappear as well..._

* * *

"Hally...Hally...?"

Jack kept calling out and calling out...but no response. Even the monsters—oh, uh, _paranormal_ tenants of the castle were nowhere in sight.

Fittingly enough (or maybe ironically enough), this whole place was as dead as a graveyard.

Where was she? Usually the sorceress would have been swarming all over Jack right now—fawning all over him, pinching his cheeks, lamenting over how skinny he let himself become. The winter sprite eventually grew to expect that kind of attention. It was a welcome break from the constant lack of acknowledgement from others, human and magical being alike.

Just then Jack caught sight of some of the sorceress's minions. The Wraiths—short, squat, pale white, thought-bubble shaped spirits, adorably big-eyed ghosts that would remind the ice spirit of that Pillsbury Guy on kids' breakfast boxes in the late 20th century—they should know the whereabouts of their boss. "Hey! Have any of you seen Hally?"

The Wraiths halted in midair the second their bulbous, yellow eyes caught sight of Jack, who merely mistook their stark silence for confusion and misunderstanding. "You know—Hally O. Ween—ye tall, blonde hair, orange eyes, freaky fetish for cackling mad—"

To his further confusion, however, the Wraiths never responded. In fact, some of them looked more like they were on the verge of crying, their hovering companions appearing to attempt to comfort them. The concerned ice sprite barely asked the whimpering wisps what was wrong before—

"Oi, get your arse outta here!"

The sharp tone of the familiar, Aussie accent sent the Wraiths dashing away, leaving behind a very baffled Jack Frost, who spun around to be face to face with none other than—

"Whoa, ho, ho...Cottontail?" Jack questioned with a wry smirk. "What are you doing here in this neck of the woods?"

Bunnymund's frown became even deeper than before. "Payin' mah last respects to a friend, Frostbite. Not that it's any of your damn business!"

A sudden feeling of sinking began to creep inside Jack at the words "last respects", but the winter sprite ignored the feeling. There lay no point in jumping to conclusions. This lost person could have been a friend of Hally, too. But then why wasn't she here with Bunnymund? Maybe she was in another part of the castle...Maybe the Wraiths suddenly remembered and went back to find her...

"So, um...," Jack leaned on his staff as he looked away, a bit awkward at having a conversation with someone who was, for all intents and purposes (especially after the Blizzard of '68), his arch rival.

He rubbed his head in a rare show of tongue-tied sheepishness; he hadn't the slightest idea where or how to begin looking for the German Guardian. Jack hadn't been kidding about offering the elder comfort; she could be very emotional at times.

"Where's Hally? Y'know...so I can, uh..."

"So ya can what? Squeeze outta her the location of her lab and equipment so your blasted ice powers can screw up the last traces of her all hard work?"

_'Last traces...' _As in—what remained of Hally's experiments? What remained of—No, there was just no way. Jack knew. "Okay, Kangaroo," he chuckled to deny the gap that had now become an all-too-familiar chasm, "The joke's over. Where's Hally?"

"Gone, you flake." "Dead. Flippin'...dead. She and two other Guardians were lost in a fight against Pitch. For all any of us know...Hally is history. Permanently."

...

_'No...don't cry.'_ Not in front of this overgrown rabbit...But the reality...the reality of being alone again...

_No._

That he'd just been stripped of one of the few people who truly decided he was worth something...

_No. _

That he'd had just lost the closest thing he had ever—and possibly would ever—have to a...

_No!_

Bunnymund's callous demands cut through Jack's thoughts like a chainsaw through wood. "An' what the bloody hell are ya still doin' 'ere?! Go on an' scram!"

"You're lying." Jack didn't cry when he whispered this. He didn't scream. He didn't tremble. Just one soft, unyielding whisper...

The Guardian of Easter looked taken back for a few seconds before he fixed an even darker scowl on the winter spirit. "What the bloody hell are ya talkin' 'bout, ya gumby?"

"Where's Hally?"

If possible, the silence became thicker than before...until Bunny lost it. The Aussie twisted his face in pure anger. "Has all that cold numbed your damn ears, ya dill? She's dead. Gone. Finished! BLOODY OUTTA THE PICTURE! "

Jack refused to relent. He refused to the listen the inner voice telling him what he didn't want to hear. "Well, where has she gone? Where did she go? For all you and the rest of those Guardians know, she might not be as dead as you—"

"GET OUT! IT'S ENOUGH THA' WE'RE ALREADY GOIN' THROUGH HELL BECAUSE OF THIS! TAKE YOUR DAMN WIND, YOUR DAMN STAFF, YOUR DAMN SELF, AND GET—THE HELL—OUT! THERE'S NO PLACE FOR YA HERE! THERE'S NO PLACE FOR ANYONE HERE! NONE OF THE MONSTERS SAVE FOR THE WRAITHS CAN LIVE HERE ANYMORE, LET ALONE GET CLOSE ENOUGH!"

...

Emerald piercing into icy blue...the latter, for one of so few times, lacked the gall to glare back...

"I don't even know how you got in here in the first place, Frostbite." Bunny was heaving like an exhausted dog. If he hadn't been so furious right now, he'd have been mollified at his show of weakness in front of Jack. "You don't even _belong _in here. Up until a few hours ago, these halls belonged to a Guardian who had more powers and know-how in her pinkie than the rest of us had in our whole bodies.

At last, the Guardian of Hope looked away to the empty armchair visible in the living room entrance just across from him and Jack, verdant eyes locked onto those of someone no longer there. "Hally O. Ween...the Guardian of Bravery...bold and crazy enough to create tools and tricks the likes of which even the rest of us Guardians have never seen."

For the first time, Jack saw sadness etched into the face of the same mammal that only showed him irritation and hostility. "And now we may never see them at all..."

At last, he turned his back on the ice spirit, his long ears drooping. There was nothing left to say.

Hard...Jack still found this situation hard—no, difficult to swallow...but what struck him even harder...was the possibility that Hally only took him in out of pity.

"Just get out. Now."

Jack never heard the taller rabbit. He never saw the lapine point to the same window through which the wind brought him in. All he noticed was the chasm, now a dark, yawning canyon swallowing him whole, stripping him of all sight and sensation.

In a deep daze, he felt his body go into complete autopilot. With the whole world passing by as a blur, Jack only returned to reality in full at the feeling of the wind, his only true, permanent companion, cradling him in its hands as he soared far, far away from the only place where he had felt welcomed.

And reality sunk in like a rock into a lake.

He was alone again.

For the first time in years, Jack Frost felt wetness stinging his cheeks, but didn't dare wipe them away.

A single, frozen tear fell into the wind that night.

* * *

**Gah, I hate torturing the characters like this, especially my OCs, but it's necessary for character development. L**


	9. A Friend

**This one is an AU chapter, and it features a certain character from a certain other computer-animated movie. Can you guess who? Never mind, you'll find out soon enough. Oh, and I only own Cupid (or Rachael as she'll be called) and any other character I made up for this chapter. The song in this chapter is a modified version of "Humans Ain't What They Seem To Be," the song Rita (the cat from Animaniacs) sung in the pound and that belongs to Warner Brothers.**

* * *

Rain poured down everywhere as a yellow taxi carefully maneuvered through the slick, city streets, streetlights and headlights, the only things keeping the occupants of the vehicle from being in total darkness. The taxi eventually stopped in front of a clean, tidy, red-bricked building, the windows shining like lighthouses in the misty atmosphere.

Out of the taxi stepped a pale-skinned, blonde woman dressed in a long, khaki trench-coat and red high heels, her face obscured by the lights that loomed over the umbrella over her head. With a huff of frustration, she swiftly turned to reach into the car and pull out a tiny, young girl into the rain, never bothering to share her umbrella with the drenched child.

Not that the girl minded—she'd been through weather much worse than this.

And she'd never been much of a looker to begin with anyway. Dirty, green-and-magenta sneakers sloshed in the puddle the pony-tailed brunette involuntarily stepped in, her color-worn, purple denim jacket covering the green sweatshirt and sleeves that almost swallowed her tiny hands. Shaking the water off of her worn-out, blue jeans, the girl popped her gum with a nonchalant air as the woman pulled her into the building.

The woman and the girl entered a waiting room that was rather flashy in its decorations—flowers of ridiculous sizes lining the sides of the room wherever a chair didn't stand, motivational posters stapled all over the walls, which were covered in a bright pink so tasteless that the girl's gum showed more fashion sense, and a cheap, beige shag carpeting that covered the entire floor.

The pair reached a wooden desk, where the woman proceeded to ding the bell with impatience. A few seconds later, a short man with balding brown hair and a bulbous nose stood up from the floor, his brown-iris eyes huge in appearance thanks to his pair of giant, red wire-framed glasses. He was dressed in a simple, brown dress-up shirt and slacks and black dress shoes.

"May I help you, miss?" the man asked in a tired tone.

"Yes," the woman curtly replied as she suddenly lifted the girl by the waist and over the table. She ignored the child's dirty look. "I'd like to return...I want to give back...You see, I don't..."

"Spit it out already, lady, sheesh," the girl muttered in annoyance. She wasn't getting any younger.

"Take this girl!"

Said girl's bum met the hard countertop of the desk with an uncomfortable plop. "I'm sorry, but this just isn't working out the way I hoped it would. You see, I just broke up with my boyfriend and I needed company so I wouldn't be lonely. That's why I decided to adopt a little girl but this one is just impossible!"

All the while, the man took the girl under his arm as if she were a sack of potatoes and went in the back, the woman following after him, still complaining.

"She never comes when I tell her to; she just pops her gum and stares at me, as if she thinks she's better than me."

_'Hey, the truth hurts, sister,'_ the girl thought with a quiet snort. This lady obviously had an inferiority complex if she was more worried about who's better than about taking care of a child.

Eventually, the man stopped before a wooden door, pulled out a key from one of his shirt pockets, and unlocked it. Then, after tucking the key back in said pocket, he set the girl down on her feet and pushed her into the dimly lit, Spartan room before promptly shutting the door at her back.

The girl quickly put her ear to the door the second she heard the lock click.

"All I want is someone that listens to me, someone that comes to me when I call."

The girl rolled her navy-blue eyes at the excuse as she listened to the two adults walk back down the dark hallway. "It's called a husband, lady. Get one."

* * *

A few minutes after the woman left, a rather large boy with spiky, auburn hair and unusually large hands barreled through the glass doors, a taller, gangly man with tousled brown hair barely hanging onto the back of the child's lumberjack shirt for dear life. Fortunately, the boy stopped right before the desk, thus ending his guardian's unwilling rollercoaster ride.

"Ugh...," the man groaned as he picked himself off of the grey tiled ground, the boy too excited and curious about this place to notice, "Hi, I'd like to get rid of this boy. My wife and I can't have any kids, and I'm starting think that's a blessing in itself. This thing's a miniature bulldozer for God's sake! He couldn't take two steps without breaking something."

The orphanage worker took the boy by one of his oversized fingers and led him down the same, dark hallway—easier said than done since the oddly large child kept getting sidetracked by something, forcing the worker to pull on him every now and then. It was like trying to move a baby elephant.

Just like with the girl, the worker pushed the boy into a dark room and locked the door behind him before going back to the waiting room.

After finding a stool in the corner of his room and moving it to the door with one hand, the boy stood upon the stool and looked out the medium-sized glass window, smiling at the retreating figure of his former guardian. "Aw, what a funny guy my daddy is!"

"Who's there?" a young, female voice suddenly called from next to the boy's room, its owner more alert than before.

"Hello?" the boy answered back in a curious tone. He turned his head this way and that to find whoever just spoke.

"Alright, buddy, who are ya?" Aha, it came from the right-hand side of the room...which meant...

_'Oh goodie, I got a new neighbor!'_ The boy cleared his throat and called out to the girl, "Hi, my name's Ralph! What's yours?"

A few seconds passed before the young brunette in the adjacent room finally answered, her voice chill and unconcerned, her back to the wall Ralph was talking to. "Rachael," she took out a file from one of her pants' pockets and proceeded to do her nails, "So buddy; what are you in for?"

Losing his smile for the first time since he'd got here, Ralph fidgeted and twiddled his thick fingers. "I kinda got in trouble for breaking Mommy's stuff. Stuff always breaks when I touch it." He paused for a moment to look at the wall that blocked his view of the girl. "What about you?"

"The usual: being too much for the man...or the woman in this case."

Ralph awed in sympathy and understanding. "Oh, does stuff break a lot around you, too?"

Rachael smirked at the question, briefly stopping in her nail-filing; this dude had no idea who she was, did he? "You could say something like that."

Their conversation cut at the abrupt sound of a door swinging open. The orphanage worker was leading a portly, redhead woman dressed in purple down the hallway. Several doors could be heard opening in eagerness—Rachael's was one of them. The brunette pulled on her best sad eyes as she stood at full attention in her doorway.

"It's about time. Make with the sad eyes, Ralphie Boy," she uttered when she heard the door next to hers open as well. Ralph hadn't stepped out of his room, so Rachael couldn't see him at all. Not that that mattered—before long Rachael would be out of here before you could say—

"Oh, she's perfect!" The woman ended up picking a rat from the floor instead, completely ignoring the children who looked at her with looks of disbelief. How stupid could these grown-ups get?

Rachael shook her head and closed her door. She expected as much. "Grown-ups—go fig."

Ralph was of a different mindset. "You sure got that right," he sighed in oblivious dreaminess as he too closed his door, "That's one lucky rat, huh?"

Rachael wasn't listening. She was too busy using her pocketknife to scrap in a new tic-mark into the right wall; right now counted as her thirty-first time back in this child prison.

"Aw, what does it matter?" she uttered to no one in particular. She walked over and stood against the wall shared by her room and Ralph's, sliding down onto the floor and looking up to the ceiling with grim reverence. "Before ya know it, we'll be takin' that field trip to the stars."

"Oh, that sounds fun!" Ralph rubbed his hands in excitement, completely misunderstanding. "What should I bring?"

Rachael gritted her teeth then threw her hands out in exasperation. "They're gonna starve us, ya buffoon! We'll be dead!"

Ralph went stark silent at this rebuke; his gaze lowered to the ground as he squeaked out, "That doesn't sound like a fun trip."

"You're not the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, are ya?" Rachael asked in both sarcasm and wonder. If yes, then it was no wonder this guy sounded so happy before.

"Not really," Ralph shook his head with a bashful shrug and a thoughtful frown, "I'm more muscles than brains actually."

The brunette raised her eyebrows and hummed, impressed by the boy's straightforwardness. "At least you're honest." _'That's a nice change of pace from all the yutzes I've dealt with.'_

She stood up and dusted her pants off then cracked her knuckles over her head with a satisfying pop. "Besides, what are grown-ups good for anyway?"

All of a sudden, the scene took on a melodic atmosphere, almost like a musical cue in a play.

_"They hug ya when you're sad."_ Ralph regained his smile for a moment.

_"They slap ya when you're bad."_ Rachael slapped one hand over the other.

_"When your sibs pick a fight, the grown-ups definitely stop it."_

_"Yeah, and compared to their little angels, your words ain't worth smack." _Rachael checked her nails once more before looking back in Ralph's direction. "_Ring a bell, Jack?"_

Little Ralph rubbed one of his meaty arms in sad remembrance.

_"Exactly my point. Grown-ups ain't what they seem to be._

_They don't mean that much to me._

_No...not much at all..."_

Memories swept over Rachael as she walked to the barred window of her room and put her hands to the bars.

_"When you're all cute and small_

_You got it made, attention and all_

_But when ya come past seven_

_Ya lose your ticket to heaven_

_It's all 'Watch that mouth and don't you dare touch that.'_

_And when they ever call you, it's always, You dumb brat.'"_

Rachael shook her head out of the reverie.

_"Grown-ups ain't what they seem to be._

_They don't mean that much to me._

_No...not much at all..._

_But sometimes in the stillness of night, this feeling I try to fight."_

Her lips rose into a true smile for the first time tonight. Rachael leaned her chin on the cold, cement sill.

_"It's the feeling from kisses and hugs so kind_

_Being all safe and snug in my bed...tucked in so the cold I won't mind."_

But that was a mere dream. Rachael remembered that quickly and so scowled.

_"But I ain't gonna love 'em_

_That's what I know in my heart and my head_

_Cuz grown-ups don't mean that much to me._

_No...not much...at all..."_

Putting her head to the bars, Rachael sighed to herself wistfully. Who was she fooling, dreaming? She'll never find a home, much less a way out of this place.

Her bars said differently. They gave out from the window and slipped out of the shocked girl's hands. Rachael watched in amazement as the bars fell to the found with a sharp clatter. For once, the hush-hush shoddiness of this orphanage actually came through for her.

"Huh, what do ya know?" she murmured to nobody in particular. An odd sense of closure overtook her, so the brunette hurried her way to the wall. "Hey, uh, Ralph?"

Ralph picked his head up from the floor from where he'd been resting it along with the rest of himself. "Yeah, Rachael?"

"It was nice getting to know you," Rachael tapped her knuckle against the wall between her and the wrecker as a way of saying goodbye. Her message got through to Ralph, but that was all he understood. Nevertheless, the baffled boy tapped a finger against that same wall.

"If I got it for you, then I'm glad it was nice."

_'Oy, that guy is one piece of work.'_ Shaking her head at the thought, Rachael strolled over to the window. It looked just her size. She looked back to the wall again. "Hey, if you ever wanna call me, just beep me." **(1)**

With those words, Rachael climbed feet-first through the window...but didn't get past her chest before a certain someone started chirping out, "Beep, beep, beep, beep."

Rachael caught herself in time by clinging to the window jamb. She struggled for a bit but eventually made her way back into the room, her thin eyebrows going straight in resignation. "Me and my attempts at breaking clichés..."

Well, at least she couldn't call Ralph a bad listener. Her faint sense of morality was tugging at the back of her mind anyway, so Rachael walked back to the wall and tapped her knuckles to it again to get Ralph's attention.

"Alright, listen, buddy, you're kinda growing on me and if I don't help ya out, my conscience won't let me live it down, so how about we make a deal? We break out together, you and me...," the brunette explained thumbing to the unseen Ralph and then to herself, "but once we get outside, I don't know you, you don't know me. Deal?"

"It's a deal!" Ralph sounded more than excited at hearing these words.

Taking a paperclip from another of her pants' pockets, Rachael picked the lock open and strolled her way into the hallway where she did the same with Ralph's door. Back to the wall, she effortlessly flicked the entrance open.

Only to receive a body-slam to the wooden floor and a hug that nearly knocked the wind out of her—what was this guy: a gorilla?!

Rachael got her answer the second she looked at Ralph for the very first time—or more specifically his hands. Her eyes went wide once she realized who she'd _really_ been dealing with.

"You're _Wreck-It_ Ralph!" she screeched in alarm.

As usual, her point flew over Ralph's head. "Yeah, and you're one heck of a wrecker, Rachael—a really, _really_ good wrecker!"

In spite of the near lack of oxygen, Rachael managed to push his hands away from his body, giving herself room to breathe. She frowned at him and thumbed to her chest. "Do I _look_ like a wrecker to you, Brick-for-Brains?"

That word did it. As soon as Ralph heard the word "brick," he dropped Rachael and raised his fists as if he were a boxer. He tried what he thought to be a frightening growl, but it only made him look even sillier. "Brick? Brick! Where? Lemme at it! Lemme at it!"

_'We do not have time for this.'_ Rachael managed to grabbed Ralph by the front of his shirt. "Forget it, Bulldozer. Let's amscray!"

"Aha, runaways again!" The two children gasped in fright at the sight of the orphanage worker, the aged man's usually tired-looking face now a stern frown. He marched up to the duo, grabbed Rachael by the scruff of her shirt, and eyed her then Ralph with stark disapproval. "Looks like I'll hafta separate the two of you."

Ralph would not have it. Scowling like a provoked bull, he balled hands up into fists, raised them over his head, and shouted out, "I'M GONNA WRECK IT!"

Before either the man or Rachael could react, Ralph leapt at the man, knocking him to the ground with his bare feet and catching Rachael in his big hands as she flew from the worker's grasp. Holding the tinier girl under one of his arms, the young wrecker dashed from the man and, to Rachael's disbelief, ran back into his room.

Rachael had nothing to say at this point; Ralph was moving too fast for her mind to keep up. She squeaked once she realized they were heading for the plaster wall of Ralph's room. Fearing the worst, Rachael squeezed her navy-blue eyes and braced for impact.

The impact ended up being between the wall and Ralph's blocky fist instead; the wall didn't stand a chance.

Plaster, wood, and bricks ran down like rain as Ralph sped through the hole he'd managed to create with just one punch. Rachael let her jaw drop once she reopened her eyes and looked back at the perforated wall, a few bricks still dropping across the opening. She had heard the rumors of how Wreck-It Ralph once brought a building down when he was born, but she had never seen his wrecking abilities in action.

She had also never seen anyone run so fast before in her life. Before long, the orphanage couldn't even be seen anymore; only the freshly wet streets and sidewalks and unimportant towering buildings lay around the two tykes, the streetlights nearby and the moon and stars high above their only sources of light.

_'Okay, I __**think**__ we've put enough distance between us and those bozos already.'_ Unfortunately, Ralph didn't seem to know that himself; he still ran like the police were at his heels. Not that the chances of that didn't exist, but Rachael knew for a fact that those losers that ran the orphanage wouldn't lift a finger to get the two of them back.

"Oh, Juggernaut...You can stop now." Ralph kept running like he didn't hear her. His annoyed passenger scowled and yelled out, "Dude, hit the brakes already!"

She got her wish. Ralph skidded to a stop...but due to his loose, clumsy grip, Rachael ending up flying right out of his grasp.

"Whoa!"

Luckily, the airborne girl managed to catch a metal telephone pole in mid-flight, albeit rather roughly. Clinging to it like a koala to a tree, she grimaced at the impact between her and the metal, growling under her breath, "Boys..."

Ralph approached Rachael, looking slightly apologetic despite his grin, as the brunette slid down the pole and landed on her feet. Rachael turned back and eyed the wrecker for a few seconds. _'I guess I owe him one for busting me outta there. Besides, I could use the extra muscle.'_

"Okay then, you can pound around with me for now...," Rachael held up a finger in mid-sentence, "but when we find new families, I don't know you, you don't know me. Are we square?"

Ralph blinked at her in confusion for a few moments. "Personally, I'd rather be a rectangle. Squares always looked too perfect to me."

Rachael looked away with a dry look of "Oy vey" before hopping onto Ralph's shoulders, her arms draped around his hefty neck. "Hit the road, Geometry Boy."

No need to tell him twice—the young wrecker took off like a trigger-happy baby bull. Rachael had no choice but to cling to Ralph's neck for dear life as he dashed to and fro across the empty street, calling the names of certain buildings he knew and randomly pointing out whatever caught his interest.

The brunette clinging to the boy's neck like the end of a scarf in the wind looked up to the silent heavens with a look of cringing wariness.

"What have I started?"

* * *

**(1) I had Kim Possible on the brain. So sue me!**


	10. Somehow

**Hally, Roy, and Cupid and all other characters and elements non-canon to Rise of the Guardians belongs to me. Anything and anyone canon belongs to Dreamworks Animation and William Joyce.**

* * *

Bleak.

That was the only word Hally O. Ween believed could properly describe the grey, desolate wasteland she and her fellow Guardians had been exiled to.

Right now, the blonde sorceress stood at attention near a thick forest of dead, bare trees, the flaky, cracked bark black as if made of charcoal rather than wood—proof of the fire that had long ago deprived this place of its beauty.

Hally was glad such was the case; a healthy, green forest would have not only been an eyesore in a flat, unchanging land otherwise devoid of beauty, but also mocking due to the forest's relatively insignificant size.

Mocking the exiles' attempts at escape.

_'We certainly don't need a reminder.' _

Cupid had been the first to panic. Her tough girl front crumbling instantly after arriving, she had only stood where she'd landed—lying unconscious for an unknown length of time along with her two older associates— for three seconds before dashing off in a futile effort to find the other Guardians...the ones who hadn't been unfortunate enough to fall into the paradox vortex.

In spite of her wavering optimism and the situation at hand, Hally couldn't help chuckling in nostalgia at the newly-turned-teen archer's lack of common sense. Leaving behind one's own comrades after being sent to an unknown and unrecognizable world—calling such a move "amateur" would have been an understatement.

Bunnymund had taught that girl many lessons; patience had not been one of them.

But on the plus side, at least Cupid wasn't straying _too_ far. Hally could still spot the telltale green sweater and magenta corduroys of the figure frantically searching in the distance of grey-and-black speckled plains.

_'Now where's Roy?'_ the blonde mage mused in concern as she scanned her surroundings. _'There's no telling how far __**he's**__ gone. '_

She got her answer when she felt someone tugging at her dress from below.

Her look down revealed an extremely short, bearded, and balding redheaded man staring up at her through narrowed, emerald eyes. He was dressed in a green jacket and darker green pants, a light brown buckle keeping the latter up against his white button-up shirt. Gold adorned him in the form of a wristwatch, a chain hanging from his belt, and the buttons on his undershirt. The man's feet, clad in light brown, dress shoes, tapped against the grass-less ground in impatience, his hairy hands crossed over his chest.

"So, any idea as ta wha' happen' ta us, _Banshee_?"

Ignoring the Irish man's griping tone and the sharp insult undoubtedly aimed at her occupation, Hally looked skyward to discover, much to her relief, the moon, its familiar, silver light coating the dark landscape in a comforting glow. _'Never underestimate Manny.'_

But now to the business at hand: "I'm not quite sure," the taller Guardian put a white-gloved hand to her rounded chin to mull, "but I did detect an awfully powerful arcane signature being initiated just before the paradox imbibed us."

Her redhead companion merely tilted his head in confusion. He looked as he'd just been asked to solve a trigonometry problem. "Ye realize I ain't a lexicon, lass...right?"

_'Oh...I did it again, didn't I?'_

The sorceress clicked her teeth in embarrassment with this thought. Right, she had forgotten; she wasn't dealing with the certified paranormals (or "monsters," as mortals and most other spirits crudely refer to them) familiar with the more technical aspects of magic. She screwed her face up in thought, thinking of a way to explain in layman's terms.

"I felt a ton of magic being released right before the big, gaping hole in the sky sucked us up."

Her bantam companion nodded, both in understanding of the explanation and in approval for the simplifying of said explanation. He uncrossed his arms and set them akimbo. Hally frowned in confusion when Roy suddenly shifted his eyes in a random direction.

"DAMN IT!"

Okay, scratch that. Roy G. Biv _hadn't _been looking in a random direction.

Unsurprisingly, the swear word came from Cupid. Evidently, she'd needed some space to vent off her frustration. Hally saw it more as a way for the distressed teen to cope with her pain.

_'I can't blame her. I don't even __**want**__ to know how Bunny is handling this on the other side. Do they even __**know **__whether we're alright?'_

Dozens of possibilities about how their fellow Guardians could be faring quickly came up in the mage's head.

None of them were pleasant at all.

Pushing these thoughts out of her mind, Hally sighed to herself and walked forward to meet halfway with a slowly approaching Cupid, who didn't even bother to watch where she was going. The brunette archer had her eyes to the ground, her walk furious and hurried, her black-gloved hands tightly balled into fists.

She looked sorely tempted to kill someone—wouldn't take a great stretch of the imagination to guess who. And the thought of what that "who"—or better yet "who's" were doing to the others _not_ trapped in this world chilled Hally to her core.

_'I almost wish we weren't the only ones who ended up here.' _

But she knew she could never live with her fellow Guardians, especially North, having to spend years—maybe even forever for all she knew—in this nightmare. She felt more than she saw, but Hally knew there were presences in this area that weren't meant to be crossed, much less taken lightly.

_'But then again, neither are we.'_

Yes, that thought gave Hally hope (oh, how her friend Bunny would've _loved_ to hear that) and encouraged her to spread that hope to her fellow Guardians.

She spoke up the second Cupid stopped right in front of her, the girl somehow managing not to run into the older woman. The elder sorceress tilted her head and bent down a bit to get the teen's attention.

"Cupid."

Navy eyes looked up, wide and wet with doubt and fear. Their owner's voice soon emerged, its tone unusually quiet and fearful. "I don't want this to be the end."

Hally and even Roy automatically cringed in sympathy at the shimmering tears threatening to leave the young girl's eyes.

Cupid was not a person who cried easily. This owed to her murky past as an orphan, as well as to her intense training under the rough-and-tumble Guardian of Hope. But here, in this dark, unfamiliar world who-knows-how-far-off from home, the battle against her tears had been decided before it even began.

Hally could not blame her...but she also could not let her lose herself so easily. No matter what, the three of them had to remain calm and stick together at all costs. The Guardian of Bravery, choosing to live up to her title, took the teen by her slim shoulders and gave her the most assuring smile she could.

"And it won't be, sweetie."

These words, spoken firm and true, caught Cupid's attention, making the archer stop her tears for a moment and gaze up at Hally through water-rimmed eyes. "Y-You think so?"

More than ever, Hally wished North stood right beside her this very instant. They were both optimists at heart, but the bringer of Wonder always showed more confidence in the future than his more wary fiancée. He would've been better able to see past the doom and gloom of this situation and solidify everyone else's fading faith in the possibility of returning back home.

But North _wasn't_ here. Hally was. _'So I'll have to do.'_

The Guardian of Bravery kept her pink-painted lips in that same smile, never letting Cupid see even an iota of her hesitation...never letting her _or _Roy see her fear.

"No, even better...I _know_ so."

* * *

**I'll be honest with all of you. I'd been putting off the chronicles of Hally, Roy, and Cupid in the Lost Lands because I doubted my ability to weave together decent chapters about their adventures. Not anymore—so hang on tight and get ready for a heck of a ride!**


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